OneShot Wonderland
by Nylah
Summary: 100 drabble challenge. Latest: 67. Playing the Melody - How do you entrance ghosts? Apparently, with music... Written for Cordria's July Contest.
1. 89: Through the Fire

A/N: Seems I'm doing one shots lately... And I saw everybody was doing these 100 theme challenge thingies, so I decided to take a shot at this one (I got this idea when reading the one at-a-glance did). If you like it I'll do more...and if you don't like it I'll probably do more anyway because this is fun :)

I rated the whole thing 'T' because my stories have a tendency to get a bit on the dark side.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom

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89. Through the Fire

The bright, orange yellow glow surrounded him, blazing, burning, but strangely quiet in his bubble. It truly was fascinating, the way it was eating away his protection, slowly penetrating the cold, warming it up until it reached him. He smiled a little. It would get very hot very soon where he was sitting, his back against the lockers in the hallway, alone.

He heard it's blazing noise now, as a distant rumble, crackling and hissing, the flames licking on the edge of where he was. He wrapped his arms around his knees and pulled his legs back a little more. His sneakers were already smoking, his jeans had tiny burn holes in them from the sparks that penetrated his ice shield.

He had known it wouldn't hold long, but it was the best he could do at the time. He hoped everybody was out of the school, there hadn't been much time. By the time the fire alarm went off half of the school was already ablaze and people were jumping out of the windows of the three story building.

Of course he was trapped already then, the fire surrounding him evenly, with no chance to get through. He had tried intangibility, but to his surprise had found the fire to be just as hot as when he was solid. And before he could execute his other option, go ghost and fly through the flames as quickly as possible, the entire building was ablaze. He would never make it.

The shield was very thin now and the flames sounded like thunder. He was sweating profusely and inched away from the steel doors of the lockers a bit because they too became hot. He could hear the sirens now, the fire trucks and ambulances stopping in front and beside the school. He imagined the firemen spilling out, ushering everybody away to a prudent distance, rolling out their fire hoses, the medics hurrying to attend to the wounded. He imagined Sam and Tucker yelling at them that he was still inside, that they needed to go in, that they had to get him out.

His anger was gone now. At first it had been replaced with panic and fear, looking into the eyes of his startled friends over the flames, unable to get to them. He had yelled at them to run, to take everybody out, quick, quick, don't wait. And he had watched them leave, running away banging on the classroom doors, screaming, shouting. The aggravating jocks were long gone, scared to their wits end by his fiery outburst.

Now, the only thing he felt was acceptance. He couldn't get out, and chances were the firemen would not be able to get to him in time. His shoes were burning and he quickly pulled them off and threw them into the fire. The flames were licking at his feet now and he felt a scream of agony rising up in him. As he screamed, he saw movement at the end of the hallway, figures moving towards him, extinguishing the fire as they neared him, shouting at him to hold on. His last hope was crushed as the last remnants of his shield gave away and let the hungry flames have access to his unprotected body. Still, there was a strange form of justice to it, he thought.

Considering he started the fire in the first place.


	2. 2: Love

A/N: Alright, the previous one was a bit unclear so a little explanation: Danny's got a new power (fire) and has trouble controlling it, especially when he's angry. So he started that fire unintentionally.

About this one: Fluff!

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

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2. Love

Sam put down the heavy bucket in the grass, sweating and panting and looked up the hill. The sun was shining mercilessly down on it and now that she looked at it from below, it seemed much steeper than before. And she needed to go all the way up, to where the trees began and the shade.

"He'd better appreciate this," she grumbled to herself and then smiled when she thought about the look on his face when she...

She picked up her bucket full of water and started hauling again. Step, step, step, put it down, take it in the other hand, step, step, step. It was taking forever this way and she spilled a lot of it, but she kept going. She had borrowed the bucket from the ice cream vendor and had filled at the fountain in the park. But now she had to go all the way up. Her legs and feet were getting wet from the water that splashed out of the bucket as it bounced painfully against her shins.

Five minutes later she put the bucket down again and sat down with a thump next to it. This was just way too much trouble, she thought, she should just have gotten the ice cream. She leaned over, cupped some water in her hands and splashed it in her face. This was nice. Maybe even better than ice cream. She looked up and down the slope again and saw that she was already half way there.

"Come on Sam," she muttered to herself as she got up, "If he comes looking for you it'll take all the fun out of it."

She grinned wickedly and started hauling once again, up the hill, closing in on the trees almost at the top. She could see him already, still laying in the grass, his black hair in his face. He was in the shade, but still sweat was trickling down his forehead and his face was flushed. He had rolled the sleeves of his t-shirt up as high as he could. He didn't see her because his eyes were closed and she wondered if he was sleeping.

She put the bucket down when she was only two yards away from him.

"Danny?"

If he was asleep she didn't want to wake him, she knew he got way to little of it.

"Hmmm?" he said, without opening his eyes.

She grinned, picked up the bucket and yelled "Catch!" as she threw it at him, soaking him instantly.

"Gyaah!" he yelled and jumped to his feet.

His hair, his face and most of his t-shirt was dripping water and he wiped his hair out of his face to stare at her.

"What was that for?"

"You were hot," Sam said sweetly, stepping closer to examine him, "And I got a little tired of your complaints. I told you I'd get you something."

"I thought you went to get ice cream?"

"I did. But then I met my friend Mr Bucket here." She smiled at him, "You know, you look even hotter this way..."

She stared pointedly at his t-shirt that was now hugging his chest, took another step and wrapped her arms around his neck, looking up in his face. He was at least four inches taller than she was these days.

"You know I love you don't you?" she asked and he brought his face down to kiss her.

"Yeah," he said, his lips brushing hers, "You just have a weird way of showing it..."


	3. 15: Silence

A/N: Cute, cute... if I hear that word one more time I think I'm gonna scream...:) No really, thank you my lovely reviewers, I'm so glad you liked my mushy little story, I know it was cute and I intended it to be cute so now I give you this one which is definitely NOT cute!

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

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15. Silence

He didn't speak, he didn't hear, in fact, he didn't really see. He was right there in his bubble, shutting out everybody and everything, going where he was supposed to be going, mechanically following instructions without question. He wasn't blind, or deaf, far from it. It was just that his mind had decided it didn't really need the input from the outside anymore, that things would be easier to cope with if he just shut it out.

His white hair was matted, his green eyes dull as he shuffled through the long, white hallway, passing doors and sometimes windows to the rooms. He looked at neither and even if he had looked, he wouldn't have _seen_ it. His black hazemat suit hung loosely around him, his gloves and his boots were gone and his bare feet made no sound on the floor as he walked between the two tall, white suited men.

A loud clanking breached his bubble for a moment, reaching his mind through his ears and he looked up in fright. For a moment, he saw. The door to the room had opened and slammed against the wall, revealing two people, a man and a woman in white coats standing impatiently at a table. The table had strange, glowing green straps attached to it, hanging loosely, waiting for him. In the back of the room he could see cupboards with various equipment in it and pots with strange glowing liquids. In one of them a human head was floating and his eyes... they looked at him, penetrated his skull, shattering the remains of this comfortable bubble.

Desperately, he tried to pull back into himself as he stumbled forwards, pushed by the men who had escorted him here. There was no need to see this, he had seen it countless times before, but still he watched as they strapped him down on the table with those bands he knew he couldn't phase through. He looked up at the woman, trying to see her eyes through her glasses and she hesitated for a moment.

"He's looking at me," she hissed at her companion.

The tall, gray haired man came into view and studied him for a moment, placing a hand at the woman's shoulder. He tapped his chin with his finger and stepped back.

"It just looks that way. It's mind is long gone."

"No it's not," Danny thought and proceeded to try and shut everything out, so he wouldn't feel the needle in his arm or the effects of the tests they were going to perform. He wondered briefly why all tests should be painful, but he wasn't really interested in the answer. The woman said something, her mouth was moving and he saw she had crooked teeth. He studied her as she was holding a big syringe containing some blue liquid up to her face and pushing it slightly to get rid of possible bubbles. It wouldn't do to kill the test subject, he thought ironically as he watched her move in slow motion, bringing up the needle to his exposed left arm.

She smiled at her companion and he felt the small prick of the needle in his arm - _nonono stop stop you don't know what you're doing please stop please stop pleeeeeease_ - and felt the pressure of the needle as the liquid was injected into his veins. He used to scream when they did that, long ago, but since he managed to retreat into himself he hadn't uttered a sound. He really needed to get out of there and he did it in the only way he could. He stared at the ceiling, at the bright lights there and started slamming the necessary doors in his mind.

Then he saw something else. A small room, white padded walls, white padded door. No window, but a bright light bulb on the ceiling, depriving him of his sleep, giving him no clue about the time of day. Still, he liked his room best. There were no distractions here, only silence and in his mind he was always here, even if his body sometimes went places. Places he didn't want to look at with sounds he refused to hear and feelings he pushed away until he could no longer feel.

It was better in here, inside his bubble. Nice. And. Quiet.


	4. 73: I Can't

A/N: Um...right. Warning: character death... And it's AU in the sense that Phantom Planet never happened, as in most of my fics.

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

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73. I Can't

"Don't point a gun at anyone unless you're prepared to shoot them."

I heard that in a movie once, I forget which one. I've seen so many movies in Sam's basement I can no longer tell them apart, in my memory I never really watched them, in my memory I was always watching Sam. But somehow this got stuck in my mind and I've tried to live by it, I've tried not to make idle threats. When I threatened Vlad I would kill him if he ever tried to hurt my family again, I meant it.

So now I'm sitting here, in his mansion and he is still in his chair, the former mayor of Amity Park. I'm still holding the gun, but it's no longer pointing at him, it just sits in my lap. I know I have to get moving, get out of here before anyone catches me here in a really compromising position, but I just can't.

I don't feel remorse. I thought I would, I have taken a life, something I swore I'd never do and yet I don't care. He is dead and I am glad. My other hand still holds the Fenton Ghost Disruptor, a new invention of my parents that temporarily deprives a ghost of it's powers, a bit like the Plasmius Maximus, only the effect of it is gone in about ten minutes. I know because I tried it out on myself, much to Sam's chagrin. She yelled at me when she found me on the floor that day, sweating, feeling extremely weak and my ghost powers temporarily gone.

But I had to know what it did before I could use it for my plan, a plan that had come to me every now and then in the past ten years, a plan that I never shared with anyone, least of all Sam. She wouldn't approve, ever. I never put it into action, thinking there was another way, that I would never have to do it, until finally last week Vlad went too far.

This morning I went back to Amity Park, retrieved the Ghost Disruptor and a gun from my parents weapons vault and simply went to his house and rang the bell. When he opened the door I immediately jumped forward and hit him with the disruptor, causing him to fall on the floor sweating and panting and I knew he was in agony. I quietly closed the door behind me and pulled out the gun.

"Up," I said.

He stared at me through watery eyes, unbelieving. I don't think he expected me to do this.

"Daniel," he panted and he made no attempt to move, "What a pleasant surprise! You should have called me, I would have prepared a warm welcome for you!"

"I bet," I said curtly, "Up!"

I pointed the gun between his eyes and I made sure I stayed away from his legs. Even without ghost powers, Vlad is a dangerous man. But then, so am I. He slowly dragged himself to his feet and leaned against the wall for support. I jerked my head, indicating that I wanted him to walk into his study and he complied. He sat down heavily in his chair and I remained standing, studying him.

He hadn't changed all that much over the past ten years. His hair was still white, his suit still immaculate, his arrogance as strong as ever. Weakened as he was now, he looked back at me mockingly, defying the gun in my hand.

"Really Daniel," he said, "You always tended to get overly dramatic. Is that gun really necessary?"

"You tried to kidnap my son," I said flatly, keeping all emotion out of my voice.

"Ah yes, little Jack," Vlad smirked, "But you have to admit, he'd be better off with me. You can't keep running you know. I'll always find you."

He was right. We couldn't keep running. Which was why I was here, pointing a gun to his head, solving the problem once and for all. I looked at the clock on the wall, five minutes had already passed by since I hit him with the disruptor.

"Premeditated murder, Daniel," he continued, folding his hands, "Are you sure you are up to it?"

For the first time, I smiled at him and I saw him pale. I don't think he liked my smile at all and he looked at me intently, as if trying to read my mind. He had always been good at doing that, but I don't think he knew what I was thinking now. I grabbed the gun tightly, holding it steady. My mouth went dry and I tried hold on to that determined feeling I had had the whole week. A whole week or preparing, providing an alibi for myself – not hard to do if you're supposed to be thousands of miles away – getting Tucker to disable the security camera's that were in and around his house, loading a devastating virus into his computer systems to erase everything Vlad had on me and making sure he was there, alone.

Not that Tucker knew what I was planning, or he wouldn't have helped me and probably would have tried to stop me, saying we could move again, hide somewhere else, start again. My parents... I hate disappointing them and I know I've failed them. They will probably still stand by me, but they will never forgive me. Jazz is probably the only one who will understand why I had to do this, that I couldn't keep living like this, the constant threat of a powerful, obsessed, billionaire half ghost trying to lure you to his side at all cost.

And Sam, my beautiful Sam, who always stood by me, who saved me from myself more times than she knows... she won't understand at all. She cares for all living things, plants, animals and humans alike. No, Sam will hate me for this. But at least she and little Jack will be safe.

"Good bye Vlad", I said and pulled the trigger.

And now I'm sitting here, staring at the dead form of Vlad Masters, a tiny red hole between his eyes, still bearing the shocked look on his face when he realized I was going to go through with it. I don't move, even when I hear the sirens in the distance and I can still get out of here. I sit still when the policemen burst into the room, pointing their guns at me, yelling at me to put my gun down. I remain quiet when they push me roughly on the floor, my arms pulled behind my back forcefully and they read me my rights.

You know, not only do I not make idle threats, but I've always learned I should face the consequences of my actions. I've always tried to live by that too. So I can't let myself get away with this.

I can't.

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_I'm having a little trouble with the tense here, but I think I got it right. I started in present tense, then past tense as Danny sort of recaps what happened earlier, and then went back to present tense... is this working alright?  
_


	5. 93: Give Up

A/N: Uh oh... I'm doing it again aren't I... I'll try to make the next one a little happier for Danny... but no promises!

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

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93. Give Up

The trees ended suddenly and a vast, grassy plain opened up in front of him. He let himself drop on the ground and rolled on his back, gasping for air. Some time passed by, a soft breeze rustled the trees nearby and brushed his face, drying the sweat off his forehead, an insect crawled on his hand. The shadows of the trees moved, exposing him to the blazing sun that started burning his skin. Reluctantly he opened his eyes again and looked up. The sky was blue and cloudless. He estimated it was around noon. He had been laying there longer than he thought.

He pushed himself up on one arm and examined his surroundings. He was about ten feet from the trees, the forest ending abruptly at the edge of the plain. He could see for quite a distance here, the plain stretching on for miles and miles. On the far end he could see mountains and... smoke. A single column of smoke was rising into the air, as if someone had built a campfire there. He stared at it. It was very far away. He scrambled to his feet. If it was very far away he'd better get going.

Keeping his eyes on the column of smoke in the distance, he walked across the plain, away from the woods he had gotten himself so unbelievably lost in. But where there's smoke, there's fire and a fire meant people. Maybe some campers, out there in the wilderness, having a roast or something on it, or maybe just for the pleasure of staring into the flames. He would ask them for help, they could get him back to civilization. Because the one thing he would never do, was going back to Vlad's chalet. His left shoulder still stung from the improved Plasmius Maximus, removing his powers. Vlad had laughed mockingly when he ran, yelling after him he would be back before nightfall, that little boys didn't stand a chance in the wilderness without ghost powers to protect them for twenty-four hours. He clenched his teeth. Vlad had made a mistake, letting him go like that.

After two hours he stopped for a moment and looked back in the direction of the forest, but it was very far behind him now. He throat was dry and he didn't have any water. He should have looked for water first, before trying to cross this dry, vast grassland in the burning sun. He turned and looked in the direction of his destination again, now a thin streak. The fire was burning out, there might not be anybody around when he finally got there.

It couldn't be helped, he had to keep moving, to at least try to get there, if only to find water. His face set in a grim determination, he continued on, ignoring his thirst and hunger as best as he could.

It was hot. He tried to swallow but found it impossible. His breath was now raspy and he felt the heat burn in his lungs. He realized belatedly any mistake would kill him here and he was sure his walking on these plains qualified as a mistake.

Suddenly he found himself on his hands and knees. He could't remember falling down. He looked at his hands, clawing in the dirt. He couldn't make out his skin under the black dirt and dried blood. A bath would be nice. Two baths, one for drinking and one to just sit in and soak. And his sister banging the bathroom door. He could hear her already.

"Come on Danny, you've been in there an hour, get going already."

He smiled at that.

Something in his mind screamed. He wanted it to stop but finally gave in to listen what the person screaming was saying.

"Get up get up get up..."

He didn't want to. He was having such a nice dream. He was sitting in the park with Sam and Tucker eating ice cream and then his ghost sense went off and... Wait that really happened. Memories. A sob rose in his throat and he opened his eyes.

He was face down on the ground now. His throat hurt, his stomach hurt and above all his head hurt. Laying there wasn't going to help any of that, he decided, so he scrambled to his feet again somehow and looked around him. In which direction had he been going? Had he walked around in circles? He could see the tree line of the forest he had come out of, and in the opposite direction the foot of the hills. They were considerably closer now but he didn't see the smoke anymore.

A step. And another. Slowly, painfully, he started walking again, staggering every now and then. Twice he was on his knees again but he got up and stubbornly kept moving. Visions entered his mind, visions of his family, his friends, reaching out to him, but when he reached them, his arms stretched out, they disappeared. Then monsters stood in his path, a big bear with four arms, glowing green and he shied away from it, whimpering, waiving his arms in a futile attempt to fend it off.

And then he was there. As by some miracle he had been going in the right direction all this time. He looked at what had been a large campfire. It was only smoldering now. Disappointment washed over him. There had been people here but they had left, traveled on on their happy camping trip, unaware of him and his plight. He lost and Vlad had been right, he didn't make it on his own without his ghost powers.

The sun was setting, shining it's last beams on the boy lying in the grass, face down. A light breeze waved his hair but he didn't stir.


	6. 54: Tower

A/N: Really short... I mean, really really short. Ah yes, some of you have asked me the location of the list of titles, but I just can't find it again... so I placed a link to my copy in my profile (scroll down to the story descriptions, it's right there).

Rating: K

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom

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54. Tower

He looked at it with his intense blue eyes. It was right in front of him, sitting there with it's colorful beauty, but they had placed it just out of his reach. Bummer. He opened his mouth as if trying to say something, but then closed it again, pressing his lips together in a thin line. They were teasing him, taunting him, placing that thing out of his reach, they thought he couldn't get there. He'd see about that.

With some difficulty he rolled on his stomach and lifted his head. Right there. He extended his hand, but it was still too far away. Behind him he heard soft laughter and it started to annoy him. They were laughing at him now?

He retracted his arms and placed them roughly under his shoulders, pushing himself up. If only he could make himself go forward just a little... but his body refused to cooperate and he fell down again.

He was never one to give up easily so he tried again, this time trying with all his might to pull himself forward. His legs... he would need his legs. He struggled for control for a moment as his legs twitched but then he managed to pull one leg in and push. He jolted forwards and fell flat on his face. He wanted to cry in frustration and pain, but then he realized he had moved closer and that he would need just one more push to get there. Now how did he do that again?

He felt weak and tired now and he didn't think he could make a move like that again. He struggled with himself, whimpering a little and he stretched out his hand again to the object that was still out of his reach. A frown appeared on his face as he concentrated on his hand, making it glow green. With a small cry he let go and a small ecto beam destroyed the tower his grandfather had so carefully stacked with the colorful plastic building blocks.

A stunned silence came over the living room and Jack and Maddie stared at the infant on the ground, happily laughing at his success.

"Um...I can explain," Danny said awkwardly, picking up his son.

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_Hahaha, sorry. This happy enough for you? Because I'm gonna totally destroy Danny in the next one again...:)_


	7. 86: Seeing Red

A/N: This is post Phantom Planet, so naturally it will contain spoilers. Um, I noticed another story out there which deals with Danny's post PP problems, but really, I thought this up completely on my own...Have fun!

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

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86. Seeing Red

Everything started out fine that day, or at least, as fine as it could get nowadays. With everybody now knowing Danny's secret we didn't have a moment of piece, because there was always a crowd hanging outside his house and mine, news paper reporters, camera crews, crazy fan girls (and boys) declaring their love for him. They were all after him, they all wanted a piece of him, they all adored the hero that saved the earth.

They had placed him on a pedestal, literally, with all those statues of him. For a while, we had thought it was funny and I remember complaining about them not being made out of recycled materials. And he had been happy about not having to lie to his parents and his teachers anymore, they all understood when he had to go off and fight some ghost. And they became easier to beat as he got stronger and it usually took him only a couple of minutes to capture even a relatively strong ghost like Skulker.

So for a while we were doing great and I was one happy smiling goth. I know, it was disgusting, but I just couldn't stop smiling and he was the same way, forever rushing to my side whenever he saw me, carrying my books for me despite my protesting, stealing kisses when he thought nobody was looking. But of course there was always somebody looking and one day this huge, but vague as if taken with a camera phone, picture of us appeared in the Amity Park Gazette, front page no less, of us kissing behind the bleachers. OK so maybe we were doing a little bit more than just kissing, but he's my boy friend for God sake and we're sixteen and it was nothing really inappropriate!

When Danny saw that picture he just blew up and incinerated the piece of trash calling itself newspaper with an ecto blast. Then he started yelling at everybody they should leave him the hell alone, they were invading his privacy, how would they like to be exposed like that. When Danny gets angry his eyes turn a brilliant green and he's really intimidating. It didn't help he did that in the school cafeteria, which was packed at that moment with not only students but also a photographer, who took a picture.

The next day the picture of a fuming Danny with blazing green eyes was on the front page of that same piece of trash, with the headline: 'Danny Phantom: Friend or Foe?' From that moment on everything went down hill. In the days that followed, we had more and more trouble just getting to school. The camera crews just lived on our doorsteps, the crowd not only consisted of fans, but now also had protesters there, people who were afraid he would turn into another Vlad. And the GIW were back, forever sitting in their cars, keeping their distance, but always there. When asked, they claimed they were protecting Danny, in fact, they would protect him against the crowd even better if he just cooperated with them and came in for some tests every now and then.

Danny flatly refused and from that day on practically lived invisible. Every day he flew to my house to pick me up and then flew me to school, directly into class, going invisible all the way. He then proceeded to turn us visible in the middle of the class room, shocking the teacher and our class mates, until the novelty of that wore off.

When the people couldn't find him anymore – he'd just go invisible and intangible whenever he saw either his so called fans or a reporter – they turned their attention to me, the girlfriend. I could not go invisible and they were just harassing me constantly. My parents loved it, their daughter being the girlfriend of the boy who saved the world, conveniently forgetting that they had always hated him. They appeared in every talk show that would have them, babbling about Danny as if they knew him well. By that time, I could not leave the house without Danny and we were starting to get on each other's nerves, him constantly brooding over his lack of life, me back to my gothic sarcasm.

At that point, Danny even started to consider accepting the GIW's offer, grumbling that his parents were doing test on him already anyway, what would be the harm in doing some extra tests? I did manage to talk him out of it, saying hopefully that the attention would wear down eventually, we just had to be very careful and act normal so there would be no story. We were sitting under the tree on the hill at the time, overlooking Amity Park, in fact, the same hill we were on when he gave me back the ring with the 'Sam' inscription. He started grinning wickedly at that and leaned over to kiss me, turning us invisible at the same time although nobody was around.

So, everything started out normal that morning. Danny picked me up at my house, not bothering to say hi to my parents, just whisking me out of my room the moment I finished dressing. We were heading for the school, flying at a fairly low altitude, when the Fright Night showed up. Danny always had trouble with this ghost, because he was very hard to defeat without a pumpkin nearby to stick his sword in. So he put me down in a hurry, thrust his backpack at me and yelled "Take cover!"

I was in the middle of the street, at the busiest time of the day. It took the people there three seconds to recognize me. Then they looked up and saw Danny Phantom battling the fierce black ghost on his horse, hitting him with ecto blasts as the ghost charged on him, swaying his sword, the horses hooves thundering on the imaginary ground.

The crowd started cheering and instead of taking cover, started gathering around me, crowding me until I had nowhere to go. They were poking me and touching me and screaming "Hey it's Samantha Manson!" Did I ever mention I hate that name? I think I must have. So there I was, stuck in the crowd that was cheering Danny on who took hit after hit while trying to blast the Fright Night into oblivion, instead of taking cover, which would have been the wise thing to do. I started yelling at the people around me to get out of the open, what the hell was wrong with them, didn't they know they shouldn't be directly under a ghost fight?

Obviously, they didn't, and Danny was too preoccupied with his battle to notice the rather large crowd underneath him. It was a recipe for disaster, and disaster came to us only seconds later. I was fighting and punching the people around me to get out when Danny blasted the Fright Night into a nearby building, causing large bricks to fall down on us poor people below. Then they got it, but it was already too late. The crowd started screaming and moving and I found myself moving with them against my will. Several people must have been hit by the stones, because I heard screaming and crying and then I tripped over somebody who was on the ground, bleeding from a head injury.

People were stepping on me while trying to get away and I couldn't get up. A boot hit my stomach and another kicked my arm, my leg, my head, sending the world spinning. I rolled myself into a ball, put my arms over my head and waited for them to pass me by and after what seemed like forever the kicking and trampling ceased. Carefully I unrolled myself and looked at the guy next to me, the one I had tripped over in the first place. I was a bit pissed at him for that, but of course it wasn't his fault, other than being there in the first place. He was unconscious, his light brown hair sticky with red blood, his gray business suit crumpled and torn.

I heard sirens in the distance, so somebody had had the sense to call an ambulance, or better yet, ambulances, because when I looked around I saw people laying everywhere, some moaning and moving, others frighteningly still. It looked like a war zone, or like somebody had just detonated a car bomb. I looked up in the sky, but I didn't see Danny, in fact it was awfully quiet. Then I spotted him, about thirty yards away from me, sitting on his knees and still in his ghost form. He was holding his head with his right hand and shaking it, as if dazed, and his ectoplasm covered left hand held a Fenton Thermos. He looked like hell, his suit was torn and scorched and I could see several wounds underneath, slowly oozing ectoplasm, dripping on the ground where there already was a sizable green puddle.

"Danny!" I yelled to him and tried to get up, but my left leg refused to cooperate.

I looked at it in surprise and saw that it was bend in a rather unusual way. Funny thing though, it didn't hurt at all, it must be the adrenaline still searing through my veins.

"D-Danny...?"

My voice was shaking now and missed any kind of strength, but he heard me anyway and came staggering to me, limping slightly and clutching his right side. He changed back and most of his wounds disappeared, but I saw his white t-shirt turn red under his hand.

"Sam!"

He crouched beside me and looked at me, horrified. Then he looked around and for the first time seemed to see the dozens of people lying on the ground, the rubble of the building they had damaged in the fight and the blood that was just everywhere. I think some of them were dead.

"G-God," he said and sat down beside me with a thump.

At that moment my leg began to hurt and I moaned involuntarily. He turned his attention to me instantly and his eyes went wide when he saw my oddly bent leg.

"I thought I told you to take cover!" he said and I'm sure it came out sharper than he intended.

"Geez, yeah, now that you mention it, I think I heard you say something along that line, but I thought I'd just stand here in the middle of that nice crowd you put me in and watch you fight, along with all those other morons that were cheering you on!"

He looked at me, stricken. Then he let his gaze wander over the carnage again and he seemed to understand what had happened, because he closed his eyes and his mouth became a thin line. He opened his eyes again when we heard a car stop close to us and I turned to see who it was.

The door of the white van with the satellite dish on top opened before it had gotten to a complete stop and three people jumped out, one with a huge camera on his shoulder, one carrying a microphone on a long stick and one blond reporter, who started blabbering even before the camera was rolling.

"...and here we are, at the location of yet another ghost fight and my God what a mess they made this time. It seems that a lot of people got injured here and we have to wonder how long we can condone this outrageous display of carelessness..."

I heard Danny grumble beside me and when I looked at him I saw that his eyes had turned green once more. He started to get up, staring intently at the reporter but I grabbed his arm and held him back. Behind the news van a white car stopped and two GIW's got out, but kept their distance, quietly speaking in their ear phones. I wondered if they were talking to each other. On the other side of the street, the first of the ambulances arrived.

"...but we can ask them ourselves, as the originator of this fiasco is still here at the scene beside his girlfriend who was apparently also injured. Mr Phantom, would you care to..."

Danny violently shoved the microphone away from him and got up, his eyes still flashing green. I tried to kick him to signal to him to keep his calm, but of course I tried to use my broken leg and I moaned in pain. That seemed to enrage Danny even more, because he advanced on the reporter and pushed him backwards.

"What is _wrong_ with you people," he hissed and he gave the reporter another push. "Why can't you people just leave us alone!"

I saw that the moment he had let go of his side it started bleeding again, the blood running down along his leg, turning his jeans crimson. He must be in serious pain, which didn't help to improve his mood.

"Danny!" I said urgently, trying to warn him to back off, but he didn't hear me.

Another ambulance arrived and people in white coats started moving around, checking the people who were on the ground, deciding who should be moved first. The first ambulance was already taking off again, it's sirens blaring. Danny paid no attention to all that.

"Look," the reporter said, stepping away from Danny with a frightened, yet determined look on his face and signaling to his cameraman to keep filming, "We are here to inform the public, they have a right to know what dangers lay in these streets for them and..."

"Dangers!" Danny thundered, "Dangers! Those morons were standing in the middle of the street, watching a ghost fight! How stupid can you get! You don't see people watching an earthquake, or a tsunami, or a hurricane do you!"

"We need protection from these ghosts," the reporter challenged, "Not some fancy ghost fight, but efficiency!"

He turned to me, still on the ground.

"Samantha, what is your opinion of your boyfriends power? Aren't you afraid of him, what does he do when you fight?"

The cameraman stepped closer to me and and stuck the camera into my face. I scowled at them and Danny just lost it.

"Leave. Her. Alone!" he yelled and he blasted the camera from the guy's shoulder.

Then he turned around and heaved up his arms and I knew what he was going to do. I screamed at him to stop when he made his fists glow bright green and then he fired a massive ecto blast. The van exploded, and I hoped there was nobody in there anymore. Danny shifted his gaze to the white car of the GIW. He had started glowing a bit, similar to the glow he had in his ghost form and the air was just crackling with the power he emanated, sparks coming from him and sizzling on the ground. The three news men backed away from him, slowly, as not to attract his attention.

Again he raised his arms and the GIW car exploded in a bright orange ball. The two GIW's had by that time taken cover and were talking frantically in their microphones while taking out their guns. Danny advanced on them slowly and they started shooting him, firing their ecto guns frantically while backing away. Danny simply pulled up a shield and when he reached them, took the guns from their hands, threw them up in the air and hit them with an ecto blast. They too exploded.

People were screaming again, this time not for fear of ghosts, but for fear of Danny. From out of nowhere more GIW appeared, swarming the place and taking aim at Danny, blasting him, hitting him and I saw him stagger for a moment. Then he shifted to his ghost form in a flash and then did something really stupid. He let out his ghostly wail. I pressed myself to the ground and covered my ears as the thundering sound went over me, destroying everything in sight. The already damaged building collapsed, producing an enormous dust cloud that had me coughing and still he went on. I knew he had to stop soon, otherwise he'd be out of energy and revert to his human form again, defenseless.

When the pounding of the sound waves finally stopped and the dust cleared somewhat, I saw him. He was human again and down on his hands and knees, his face ashen and his eyes closed.

"Danny," I whispered.

He looked up at me, his eyes once again blue.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Running footsteps, white gloved hands pushing him roughly down on the ground, glowing green handcuffs, loud voices barking commands and then he was gone. The cloud of dust cleared away, the doctors started treating the wounded again and one of them came over to me, asking me questions, but I didn't hear him. I was staring at the place Danny had been laying. I always knew his temper would get him in trouble. By finally giving in to his anger, his rage about people's prejudices, their fear of him, their obsessive and oppressive admiration, he had condemned himself.


	8. 61: Fairy Tale

A/N: Just a little something before we go to the creepy stuff...:)

Rating: K

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

61. Fairy Tale

"Alright, how about a that one there, he's your type."

Sam shrugged and didn't look up from her book, annoyed that they wouldn't leave her alone. They had been pestering her the whole day, asking her who she would be with if she were to get a boyfriend. Danny was pulling at her arm, making it impossible to read any further and with an exasperated sigh she complied, looked up and squinted down to where he was pointing.

She saw a tall, spiky haired boy wearing black leather trousers and an equally black t-shirt with a green skull on it. He was wrapped in so many chains she was amazed he was still upright and moving. He waved at her.

"A wannabe," she judged and returned to her book.

They were sitting on the hill, overlooking the park that was filled with people that Saturday afternoon, having a picnic or just laying lazily in the sun like they were. It was the first really warm day of the year and they were making the most of it.

"So... what is your type then?" Danny asked, purposely looking away from her. Tucker grinned.

"Would you guys just quit that? I don't have a 'type' alright. Maybe I don't want to get involved with anyone."

As she was staring at her book, trying to reread the last sentence for the third time, she totally missed the hurt look on Danny's face.

"But," he said, "Surely you want to, you know, get married someday, have kids..." His voice trailed away and he blushed.

"No."

"Come on Sam," Tucker said cheerfully, "Don't you dream of a wedding, in all black in your case, and the man of your dreams kissing you and you'll live in a big house with a dog and a gardener..."

Sam slammed her book shut and got up, glaring at her friends.

"I don't believe in fairy tales," she said and stomped off.


	9. 65: Horror

A/N: This is, as the title might reveal, a horror story. At least, I hope it is. This is sort of a tryout really, I'm working on a new story, a multi chapter fic called 'The House', which is a lame title but I couldn't think of a better one. It starts about the same, but the rest of it is different and the ending is different too, in fact the only thing they have in common is that it's about a haunted house (I currently only have two chapters on it). So I would really like your opinion on this ...

Ah yes, this is extremely long, it doesn't qualify as a drabble... but I just had too much fun writing this and I couldn't stop :)

Rating: T, barely I think... you don't think I should tone it down do you?

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom

* * *

65. Horror

The door squeaked as Danny slowly pushed it open, the sound sending shivers up their spines. Not unpleasant, more like adding to their anticipation of what they would find inside. This was a haunted house, of course the door was supposed to squeak and there should be cobwebs hanging from the heavy dark beams on the ceiling, the paint peeling from the stairs, the planks of the floor wobbling beneath their feet.

They were not afraid, just tense. They had fought countless ghosts together, some pathetic like the Box Ghost, some more fearsome like the Ghost King, or Skulker, or Plasmius. They had beat them all in the end and now they thought they were invincible, nothing could bring them down. So they stepped boldly inside, holding their ecto guns, ready to shoot an anything that moved. But they relaxed somewhat when they saw Danny's ghost sense didn't pick up anything.

With a loud bang, the door slammed behind them and they all jumped.

"The wind, hehe," Danny said, laughing nervously.

He stepped back, opened it again and peered outside into the unkempt garden. The house was old and worn and had been abandoned for decades. It was a surprise it was still standing there, just out of town in the woods surrounding Amity Park, a little bit away from the road. The city counsel hadn't let their eyes fall on this particular area yet, or it would already have been 'developed', tearing down the woods to build houses or better yet more offices or factories.

The house itself was just screaming 'haunted house' with it's dark red brick walls, it's slanted roof partially caved in, the shutters hanging out of their hinges, almost no paint left on the window-stills and the door frame. The door itself had been closed, but had been easy to open as the lock was splintered as if somebody had kicked it in a while back.

Tucker took out his PDA and began tapping the tiny touch screen with his pen, producing small beeping sounds. It sounded so normal that they all relaxed and Sam put down her backpack containing several ghost weapons, including the Jack 'o Nine Tails, the Fenton Lipstick and several thermoses. She also brought two apples and a banana, suspecting they might be there a while.

"What have you got?" Danny asked Tucker as he leaned over his shoulder, trying to read what was on the small screen.

"Lets see... I downloaded this an hour ago so I haven't looked at it yet... Alright, the house was built in 1923 no less by a man named Clarence Turner and he died here too, maybe it's his ghost that haunts here, it says here he was murdered by a burglar. And then a family lived here but they left after two of their children died mysteriously... and then two old ladies lived here but they left and nobody knows where they went. Wow, this is some unlucky house!"

Danny looked around. From the inside, it just looked like any old house, nothing special. The sun was shining through the stained glass window beside the door, making a colorful pattern on the bare wooden planks that made up the floor. They were in a hallway, with the staircase in front of them, a door to the right and a door to the left. If anything, the house looked friendly, not haunted. He turned back to Tucker, who had continued speaking.

"... and then in 1969 a man killed his whole family - two little boys and a girl and his wife - and then killed himself, can you believe that! After that it was empty for a long time, but in 1977 some rich guy bought it for his mistress and they patched the whole place up, but his wife found out and she came here with a shotgun and shot them both! It's been empty ever since. If this house isn't haunted, then no house is!"

"Well," Danny said, "According to my ghost sense, it isn't."

"But there must be something," Sam said, walking to the door on their right and opening it, "I can't believe how many deaths there have been in this house, it's... unnatural. It's as if something made those people do... what they did. It can't be just a coincidence."

She stepped inside the room which appeared to be the living room. It was almost empty, a small table was standing near the window and two old, broken chairs were laying in a corner. The floor was littered with beer cans and other thrash, mostly wrappings from the Nasty Burger.

"Ew," she said.

Danny and Tucker followed her inside and they wandered around the room, peering out of the windows in the back, looking up the chimney of the fire place, kicking the beer cans. Sam looked at the painting that hung over the fire place of a man in a black suit, wearing a black high hat. He looked very old fashioned, with black side-whiskers and a stern look on his face, as if berating them for trespassing.

"Look at this," she said to her friends and they walked over to where she was standing.

"Weird," Tucker said, "How come that's still hanging there?"

He stood right beside her and tilted his head a little, to look at it better. The floor cracked as they were standing there and Sam was just about to comment on that when Danny moved closer to them to look at it better and all hell broke loose.

With a loud crack, the floor gave way and they fell, screaming. Sam managed to grab the edge of the hole for a moment but couldn't hold on and she fell down on something soft that said 'Hrmpf' and then everything went black.

* * *

She was sitting on the staircase, hugging herself, her eyes swollen and teary. She looked around. How did she get here? Where were Tucker and Danny? She remembered falling down and then... nothing. She wanted to get up and look for them, but something stopped her. She was waiting for something or someone, who? She didn't remember. 

It was very cold in the hallway and she shivered, thinking she should have turned on the heating when she got here, but she hadn't thought she would have to wait for so long. Jake and that.. that bitch of his had gone out shopping and she had watched them leave from her car. She had taken out the spare key that she had found had entered the house to have a look around, to confirm her suspicions. She had stood in the doorway of the bedroom upstairs, looking at the dark blue silk coverings of the bed, the frilly cushions, the huge mirror on the ceiling...

Something touched her and she almost shouted. But there was nothing there. I'm just a little tense, she thought, but she got up anyway and started pacing the hallway.

What was she going to do when they got back? What was the use of her waiting for them? Again, something touched her, icy fingers trailing her cheek, stroking her hair. She shivered again, as she remembered the rumors that the house was haunted. Jake always laughed at those things, but she wasn't so sure.

Then she looked at the floor. It seemed dirty somehow and she wrinkled her nose in disdain for the whore her husband had put up in this house. She looked again. The floor seemed to be moving, rippling and she rubbed her eyes, being sure that it was caused by her fatigue.

Something cold crept up her legs and she staggered backwards against the wall, staring wide eyed at the now liquid floor, cold and red, looking like blood. She stood frozen on the spot, unable to move, until she felt the coldness reaching her thigh, crawling on her legs, going up all by itself. Then she moved, she waded through the red flood that was now everywhere, cascading from the stairs, pouring out of the walls, slightly gulfing in the hallway. She reached the door and yanked it open, stumbling outside, falling on her knees, sobbing.

She sat there for a while on her knees, her arms wrapped around her middle, in the fading sunlight of the setting sun, it's rays still strong enough to warm her. Finally she opened her eyes a little and examined her legs, but to her surprise, they were clean. She could somehow still feel it though, that cold, crawling on her legs, as if a thousand insects were trying to get on her.

Stiffly she got up, walked to her car and opened the trunk, taking out the shotgun that she had in there. Then she walked back to the house, a new resolve coming over her. They would be here any minute. She would give them a warm welcome. She started smiling happily. A very warm welcome.

She had been sitting on the staircase for ages, watching the colorful pattern of the sun shining through the stained glass window on the floor move and then fade away as it got darker. A car pulled up outside and she was silently humming to herself, an old nursery song that she used to sing to her son when he was young.

The door opened and two people walked in, laughing, carrying parcels and groceries. They stopped when they saw her.

"Agnes!" Jake cried out in surprise, looking apprehensively at the gun that was now pointing at him.

The bimbo screamed, dropping her parcels and before she could run Agnes shot her. She flew backwards against the wall and slid down to the floor, leaving a red smear behind her. Jake backed away, white faced.

"A-Agnes, p-please..."

She watched in fascination as his head exploded from the bullet, spraying the door and the floor, just like it was before. Then she calmly reloaded the gun and put the barrel in her mouth.

* * *

Danny sat in the living room of the house, staring into the fire that was burning in the fire place. He blinked. How did he get here? He was just about to get up and search for his friends when the door opened and a blond woman entered, carrying a tray with two cups on it. 

"Hi honey," she said in a sweet, chipper voice and he frowned at her.

He could see right through her, this wasn't really Tiffany, this was the devil, he could see it in her eyes, the flames of the fire dancing in them. But he smiled falsely and thanked her when she handed him his coffee. He stared into the fire again while she talked to him, her voice somehow sounding shrill and fearful. She should be fearful, he thought darkly, he was on to her. Her voice seemed to come from a great distance now, strangely echoing in the room, yapping about something inconsequential.

"You!" he turned to her unexpectedly, "You are the devil!"

His eyes were shining madly now and she fell silent, slowly getting up from her chair and backing away from him, putting the chair between them.

"N-Now John, really, why would you say that?" she said nervously, eying the door.

But he was between her and her escape route and he grinned, knowing he had her now. Slowly, he advanced on her and she backed away further, until she hit the wall. She blinked her eyes and her lips started trembling, her fingers idly tracing the pattern on the heavily decorated wallpaper.

"J-John... why are you looking at me like that... you're overworked... you need to lay down...". She was babbling now. "I am no more the devil than you are.. or the children."

He stopped at that, thinking. His children... the devil possessed them too? It was worse than he thought. Tiffany was smiling now and breathed a little easier, thinking she had him.

"See? Silly you!"

He took two big steps and grabbed her throat with both hands. Her eyes went wide in shock as he started choking her and she was hitting him with her fists and kicking him in the shins, to no avail. In the end her movements became erratic and she slumped down, still staring at him with her now glassy eyes that were almost popping out of her head.

He let her slide down on the floor and it was then that he noticed the floor was gone, that he was standing in some red liquid, looking like blood. But that was impossible of course. Still, he felt it creeping up his legs, a cold and itching feeling. Somehow, it didn't worry him and he looked up a the ceiling where he knew his children were sleeping.

* * *

Tucker blinked in surprise as he found himself once again in the living room of the house. One moment he was falling down, the next he was just standing here, in the dark, waiting. Wait a minute, when did it get dark? And what was he holding in his hand? 

The door opened and his brother walked in.

"Hello Clarence," he said pleasantly, "What are you doing here in the dark? Why did you ask me to come? "

He shivered when he felt that strange, blood like liquid still wiggling on his legs, crawling up his thighs, reaching his abdomen, his chest, his neck. How he hated his brother, his twin, always better at everything than he was, always somehow mocking him with his success, his wealth. But he was going to take care of that for good.

Without answering he swung the club he was holding, hitting his unsuspecting brother squarely on the head. He heard a sickening crack and the man went down without a word, still having that faint smile on his face. For good measure, he hit him again a couple of times. Then he bent over and searched his pockets. He took his wallet and his keys and replaced them with his own. Carefully placing the club beside the corpse, he stepped back to admire his handiwork. He started chuckling.

* * *

Sam groaned and rolled away from the person she had landed on, hoping she hadn't hurt him too much. She stopped when her hands touched... something. Something that felt a bit like bent bars, very thin and smooth. 

"Sam?"

Tucker's voice. He sounded scared, on the verge of panic and she hastily answered him to reassure him.

"Tuck? Did I land on you? Where's Danny?"

She heard him shift around some, groaning and she hoped he wasn't hurt too badly.

"Danny?" she said again, but there was no answer.

Slowly, her eyes started to get accustomed to the darkness down there. They were in some kind of cellar, she could see part of it by the light that was coming through the hole in the ceiling above them... at least _ten feet_ above them. She could make out Tucker with his red beret, lying directly under the hole in the light, rubbing his head. Behind him she saw a limp form, unmoving.

"Danny!" she gasped and crawled to her friends hurriedly.

She mostly ignored Tucker, crawling around him, muttering to herself, "Please be alright, please be alright..."

He was laying face down on the floor which was made of dirt, away from the bundle of light that came from the ceiling. She grabbed his shoulder, turned him around and gasped.

"How is he," Tucker said, popped up on one arm. He had a large bruise on his forehead and a gash on his left hand but otherwise seemed to be alright.

"I don't know," Sam said, "He's unconscious and he has a cut on his head somewhere because he's bleeding."

She took out a handkerchief from her pocket and started wiping the blood from his face. Tucker was looking around the cellar and suddenly his breath stopped.

"S-Sam..."

She looked up from Danny to look at what Tucker was staring at, the place where she had been laying moments before, where those strange bars had been... only it wasn't a bars at all, it was ribs. Ribs from a skeleton that was laying there, in fact, it wasn't just _one_ skeleton... She held back a scream, almost biting her tongue, but she started shaking violently.

She had seen pictures of Cambodia, the killing fields there, the millions of skulls, stacked on shelves in hangars and although it wasn't that bad here – at least as far as she could see in the dark cellar – there were definitely more skulls here than there had lived people in this house... there were dozens, everywhere she looked and they seemed to gape at her, grinning with their deathly jaws, their black holes for eyes boring into her.

Then she noticed something else. It got colder in the cellar and Danny's shallow breath produced a small stream of condensed air...

"G-ghost," she stuttered and started shaking Danny.

"Danny! Wake up! Wake up! There's a ghost here and we don't have our weapons..."

He didn't stir, his head rolling from left to right as she was shaking him fruitlessly. Tucker sat up and moved closer to his friends, moving painfully.

"I think I broke my arm," he moaned.

The air seemed to ripple and it got even colder. Sam could now see her own breath and she felt the malevolent atmosphere of the cellar closing in on her, choking her. The floor seemed to move under her, wiggling, shifting, turning liquid, crawling up her legs as she sprang to her feet.

"Get up!" she yelled at Tucker and he struggled to his feet with his right arm held tightly against his body. Sam realized he would not be able to help her with Danny and she bend over, put her arms under his shoulders and tried to drag him up.

"Danny!" she screamed.

He was almost completely submerged now, only his face being above the dark red...goo because she held him up. The stuff was cold but it seemed strangely alive as it stuck itself to her legs, looking like...blood. Then Tucker was next to her and with his good arm he helped her get Danny half way out of it, groaning.

"Danny! Wake up dammit!" Sam screamed.

The skeletons were moving now, getting up from the ground, appearing out of the sea of blood that was slightly gulfing around their knees, dripping red, forming decaying bodies as they approached the terrified teenagers. For a moment they were frozen in fear and they stared at the advancing, zombie like ghouls, who now looked like they had once been men, women and even children.

Then Tucker screamed and started pulling Danny along with a strength that was fueled by his fear and Sam snapped out of her stupor and helped him. They moved away from the hole in the ceiling, into the dark cellar that seemed to go on forever, the darkness engulfing them as they waded through the blood like liquid. Then Sam touched a slimy stone wall and they turned to look back. A ridiculous long way in the distance they could see the light coming through the ceiling and the shadows moving slowly towards them.

Danny groaned.

"Danny!" Sam and Tucker yelled at the same time.

"Wha..what?"

Danny heard his friends panicked voices from far away and tried to lift his head, immediately sending the world spinning, waves of nausea washing over him. He let his head fall backwards and it collided with the wall they were standing, or rather hanging, against.

"Ow."

He heard voices, urgent voices, yelling at him to wake up, get them out of there, now Danny, now, but his head hurt so much and he really didn't want to open his eyes. He wondered why he was feeling so wet and cold, why they were screaming in his ears and what that strange howling sound was.

He opened his eyes and looked uncomprehending at the advancing... corpses?

"What the...," he croaked.

"Danny!" Sam hissed in his ear, "Get us out of here!"

Shakily he removed his right arm from Sam's grip and braced himself against the wall. He stretched his arm and let go a small ecto blast, but missed because he couldn't see properly, the figures before him swarming in an unusual spectral dance.

"Help me aim," he gasped and Sam took his arm.

He fared a little better that way, with Sam taking aim and him letting go of the blasts, but it was tiring him quickly and they were still coming, crowding them, touching them with their cold, soft, slimy fingers.

"Go intangible," Tucker squeaked when a bony, withering hand touched his face.

"Hold on to me," Danny said with his teeth clenched and they grabbed him tightly, holding him up.

His breath became irregular as he pulled his will together and used all his energy to make the three of them intangible so they could make their way back to the hole in the ceiling. As soon as Sam and Tucker felt the familiar tingling and the lack of touching slimy fingers they started moving, going right through the ghouls, dragging Danny along with them who now had his eyes closed.

Twice he lost control of the intangibility and twice the ghouls started touching them again, grabbing them by their arms and legs, pulling them down and they were screaming until Danny managed to turn them intangible again. Sam started to worry about what they should do once they reached the hole, because it seemed out of the question that Danny could lift them out of there.

Danny seemed to have had the same thought, because as soon as they got clear of the ghouls he let go of Tucker and lighted a bright green ecto ball. It hovered just above their head, lighting the cellar, showing the liquid they were standing in as a black, ominous flood. The cellar seemed to go on forever, high vaulted tunnels leading away from them, disappearing into blackness. The ecto ball also attracted the ghouls.

Danny took a deep breath, knowing that their only chance was him lifting them out of there, but he could only fly when in his ghost form. He pushed Sam away from him and stood for a moment, staggering. Then he reached, trying to get to that cold core inside him that was always there, that he always took for granted, that was always so easily accessed.

Sam looked at her friend, his face contorted in concentration, his eyes closed, blocking out his environment. He was still completely covered in that cold, dark red goo and she also felt it on her own legs and arms, the sticky substance that seemed to be crawling onto her, moving itself over her body. She glanced at Tucker, who was trying to wipe the stuff from his face with his good hand, his right arm still pressed against his stomach.

A bright light appeared before them and they shielded their eyes as the familiar rings appeared around Danny's waist, sizzling, hesitating and then splitting apart, one slowly traveling upwards, the other down. They seemed to glow red in this environment, a reflection of the red goo they were standing in, the goo that was now up to her waist already, still stinging her skin, making her cold.

Then the fingers touched her again, but this time she wasn't afraid, this time she almost welcomed them. She looked at Tucker, who also seemed calm and then at Danny, who was grinning at them maliciously, hovering above the goo, but still covered by it in his ghost form. He slowly drifted closer to his friends, grabbed them both and lifted them up through the hole.

They landed on the floor with a thud, a little bit away from the hole and the treacherous floor and Danny reverted back to his human form immediately, gasping for air. They all laid there a while, their eyes closed, glad they got away from the horror in the cellar. When Sam finally opened her eyes again she noticed it was getting darker outside.

"Guys," she said hoarsely, pushing herself up, "I think we have to get going..."

She looked at herself. The red substance that had been covering her almost completely was gone, but she could still feel it somehow, as if it was creeping and crawling beneath her skin. It was a strange feeling, creepy in one way but not entirely unpleasant. Then a thought hit her and she looked at her friends, who were pushing themselves up, checking themselves over, surprised looks on their faces.

"Where did it go?" Tucker asked, looking at his left hand, turning it before his eyes and bending his fingers.

"It's still there," Danny whispered, smiling a bit.

His face was still pale and some blood was still there, but otherwise he looked fine. He got up on his hands and knees and tentatively crawled to the edge of the hole.

"Can you get me a flashlight?" he asked Sam, looking down into the cellar.

She did and then the tree of them looked down cautiously, ready to move at the first sign the floor wouldn't hold them. Sam shone her flashlight down in the cellar and they gasped in surprise. There was nothing there, just the dirt on the floor and some of the debris of the wooden planks that had fallen down with them. A little bit to the left, something white glimmered, half buried in the dirt and Sam realized that that might be the skeleton. It was only one though.

"Freaky," Tucker said, grinning.

He was still cradling his arm, but it didn't seem to bother him anymore.

"So," Sam said, "Where do we start?"

She didn't need to explain, they understood her perfectly. They edged away from the hole again and returned to their backpacks. Sam took out her apples and banana and they shared the fruit, while discussing their options.

"How about Dash," Tucker said, munching on his apple, "We've always hated him."

Danny nodded enthusiastically. "He could get into a serious accident with those weights he's always lifting in the gym."

They grinned at each other. They had formed a new bond, deeper than before and as they slowly walked home in the fading light, happily chatting and laughing, looking like any other group of teenagers even if the subjects they were talking about were a tad unusual, the house groaned and cracked.

When the sun rose the following morning, shining through the dirty windows, lighting the rough wooden floor, there was no hole to be seen.


	10. 96: In the Storm

A/N: I haven't a clue. Really. This took me about five minutes, and then five more to get the spelling right. Just drabbling along...

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

96. In the Storm

He was struggling to keep upright, leaning himself into the wind, his eyes almost closed to shield them from the rain that was whipping his face, mingling with the tears no one could tell were there. The gale tore at his slim frame, whipping his jacket, that he tried to keep closed with one hand, against his back, mercilessly beating him with the steel end of the zipper. He was soaked and cold, his too long black hair sticking to his head, his breath coming in short gasps.

"Hey, Fenturd!"

They were behind him, he shouldn't be able to hear them in the roaring wind, but he did. He stopped his struggle momentarily to turn around, to discover the reason he could hear them. They had closed in on him, laughing, grinning, their arms stretched to grab him and transport him back to their little game of tormenting him. He wasn't going to stand for it anymore though, so he turned around again and continued his battle against the storm, going higher up the hill in a ludicrous effort to outrun the entire football team.

Visibility was almost zero now, he could see only a few yards ahead of him and he half turned again to see if Dash and his friends could still see him. If only he could get out of their sight for a moment, he could go invisible and intangible and no longer be bothered by the storm or his unfriendly pursuers. He stared directly in Dash' face from up close and ducked just in time to evade his arms. Dash overbalanced and fell flat on his face and Danny let out a short laugh that was sure to anger the jock even more.

The ground he was running on became rocky and not as steep, but the wind seemed to increase as he neared the top of the hill and the barbed wire fence. Not far now, he knew, he was almost there and it would all end one way or the other. He pushed the barbed wire aside and when it stung his hands went intangible briefly, slipping to the other side. He now heard their frantic voices behind him changing tone as they implored him to stop, to come back, to not be an idiot.

The wind thundered against him, virtually leaving him breathless as he staggered to the edge of the steep cliff, traversing the unstable ground, stumbling over loose rocks, finally coming to a stop when the ground in front of him suddenly disappeared in darkness. Beneath him he could see the waves hitting the rocks, the sea white with foam and spraying water. Only then he turned around to look at his pursuers, standing on the other side of the barbed wire, their faces white, their eyes bulging, their mouths open. He grinned at them in defiance and tried to stand upright, one of the jocks started climbing the fence, screaming at him to get back.

"Like hell I am," Danny thought and brought his hand to his head in a mock salute, turned around and jumped of the cliff.


	11. 78: Drink

A/N: Hey, I'm back!

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

78. Drink

A small beam of sunlight coming through the high window hit the fish bowl filled with clear water standing in the corner of his cell, the light breaking into it's different colors on the white wall behind it. Three o'clock. The light hit the bowl at three o'clock each day, give or take a minute. He supposed it would be a little later or earlier every day and for a moment he tried to reason the time difference for each day, but he no longer had the ability to calculate anything.

He stared at the small rainbow on the wall and somewhere in his head a small green frog started singing 'Somewhere over the rainbow' and laughing madly. He didn't try to suppress it anymore, listening to it quietly and with every tone he felt his mind slipping away from him, his hope dying that they would find him here, that they would somehow guess where he was.

Water. Out of his reach.

He moved his feet a little and the shackles made a soft scraping sound on the floor he was lying on. Soft as it was, the sound pierced through his brain, intensifying itself in his mind, echoing until he closed his eyes and concentrated on being perfectly still again. Random thoughts shot through his brain, thoughts he didn't have any control over, all somehow having something to do with water. He tried to think about his family instead, his friends, Sam, but their faces were vague, blurred and somehow meaningless.

Breathing hurt. Every rasping breath he took through his dry mouth cut through his throat like a knife, but he didn't have a choice, he had to breathe. Not breathing would end his life instantly, not drinking... would end his life later, prolonging his suffering. He no longer knew why he was doing it.

Right in front of him were a lump of bread and some cookies on a small white plate. He was hungry, but he couldn't eat it, he'd need to drink something first. Next to the plate was a small white cup, filled with an ominous looking black liquid. He only needed to stretch his hand to grab it.

With some difficulty he averted his eyes from it and stared at the concrete floor instead. It was clean and white and cold. He had collapsed on it a day ago and he was still laying in the same position, with his back against the white wall, his knees drawn up to his stomach and his arms wrapped around his chest in a futile attempt to stay warm. A tremor went through the floor, but he no longer wondered what was going on. It made the water in the fish bowl ripple and the small colored spot dance on the wall.

He only needed to extend his hand and grab the small white cup.

Twice he had done it already, his shaking hand had wrapped itself around the cup, he had drawn it close and even brought it to his lips, and twice he had hurled it through his cell at the opposing wall, shattering the cup and leaving a black stain on it. Twice, Vlad had come in and had quietly replaced the cup.

Three days, five hours and fourteen minutes. He knew because Vlad had let him keep his watch. He had beaten him senseless first, chained his ankles to the wall in this white cell and then explained to him the one condition on which he could have all the water he ever wanted.

"Just drink that, little badger, and you're free to go anywhere you want."

"You're sick. I'm not going to drink that! What's the big deal anyways, you could just force it into me."

"Ah. Yes. But then it won't work. You have to drink it voluntarily. Ta!"

Three days, five hours and fifteen minutes ago. The liquid smelled foul, there was no way Vlad would have been able to administer it to Danny secretly without him noticing it. He was staring at it again and his vision blurred. He cried silently, without tears, and again extended his hand to the potion that would make him Vlad's slave.

* * *

_Oh, the dilemma... doesn't really compare to braving the cold mountain air to get some water versus a nice warm sleeping bag (I didn't, by the way, I thought up this story instead :)_


	12. 27: Foreign

A/N: Ehm... I'm stuck with a total lack of any desire to write anything. I read somewhere I should at least try to write something every day so I'm forcing myself to do that, most of it is crap though. This drabble fits the title for 'Foreign', so that's why it's here. I'll try to come up with something better next time... (Whoa, I sound really depressed don't I... I'm not, really).

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

27. Foreign

Danny stared in disbelieve at the Italian ice cream vendor on the small square in the town of Venice.

"What?"

The man shook his head and waived the 5 euro bill at him.

"Is no good. Is forged. Look."

He pointed at the gray note and held another next to it, this one with a silvery band on the edge of it. Sam and Tucker were standing close by but out of earshot, licking their cones. Danny's cone started to drip pink and brown on his hand as he fumbled with his wallet to get out another note to pay the man, grumbling to himself. He then made his way through the crowd to his friends, who looked at him with raised eyebrows.

"What took you so long?" Tucker asked, "By the way, you're dripping."

"I know, I know," Danny muttered, taking out the forged 5 euro bill, "I got a counterfeit note here, had to change it for a real one."

He handed it to Tucker, who started studying it, getting one out of his pocket to compare it with.

"Yup, it's fake alright," he said, "Wonder where you picked that up."

Sam smirked at him.

"Are you sure that ice cream vendor didn't change it around when you payed him and then claimed you gave him that false note?"

Danny looked at her, stricken, and looked back at the ice cream vendor. He then shook his head and his shoulders slumped.

"Now what?" he said, taking the note back from Tucker, "Should we go to the police with this?"

"Are you mad?" Tucker said, "And sit there for an hour trying to explain to them where we got it, in _Italian_? Hey, you could go invisible and change it around again!"

Danny shook his head.

"We don't know that it was him," he said, nodding in the direction of the ice cream vendor, "We bought pizza earlier, and some soda's later. Could have been any of those places."

He waived the note and shrugged.

"It's only 5 euro's. That's like what, 3 and a half dollars?"

Sam and Tucker stopped licking their ice cream and slowly turned to him.

"Ehm...," Tucker said hesitantly, "Danny I know math isn't your best subject but... you know you have to _multiply_ by 1.4, not divide, do you? It's closer to 7 dollars."

"WHAT!"

Danny paled as he stared at the worthless piece of gray paper in his hand. His friends could see his brain go in full reverse as he tried to calculate what he had been spending the past two weeks of their trip through Europe.

"You mean to say... all this time... during our trip... and you thought..."

Tucker started snickering while Danny shook his head in disbelieve.

"Man," he said morosely, "I hate foreign currencies."

* * *

_Yes, I do have a counterfeit 5 euro note stuck to my refrigerator and no I never make mistakes like that._


	13. 39: Dreams

A/N: I knew it... the moment I decide to focus my attention elsewhere and do some non - Danny Phantom fics I come up with this...

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

39. Dreams 

He was wandering in darkness, his senses peaked, straining his eyes to make something of the vague shapes surrounding him. He didn't know exactly where he was, or how he got here, but he knew somehow that he had to keep moving, to get to... the other side. Whatever that might mean.

The quiet around him was eerie, not because it was actually that – silent – but because of the lack of ordinary sounds he could now hear things he normally wouldn't. His feet, scraping softly on the ground, the rushing of his blood in his veins, the soft slapping of his wet hair against his forehead. Other than that, nothing.

The not knowing was the worst of it though. He had the feeling he was moving through a familiar area, but strange, altered. There were buildings there, he could sense them more than he could actually see them, lifeless, empty, staring at him accusingly.

Had he done this?

Suddenly he knew where he was. Right in front of him, the giant neon sign, it's light flickering as it slowly swayed, the bottom part having come loose from the building. Still no sound. He hesitated, unsure of what was expected of him, but then he moved forward again. This was still his home, however damaged it might be, and he wanted to know what had happened to it.

"You know."

The thought slammed into him and he shuddered, then pushed it away. Slowly he approached the steps to the front door and noticed that it was open, he could walk right in. But he suddenly didn't want to enter anymore, afraid of what he would find there.

"You know what you'll find there..."

"No," he whispered.

He tried to turn away but he was stuck now and his feet started moving as if they had a mind of their own, carrying him up the steps, into the darkness of the house. Without thinking he extended his hand to the light switch next to the entrance and flipped it on, but it didn't work. He hadn't expected it to.

He managed to stop himself just inside the living room and stood very still, listening to his own shuddering breath, coming in short gasps. There was a strange, metallic smell in the room, a staleness in the unmoving air around him. The place smelled like death.

Dripping, right in front of him, soft splashes of what seemed like water dripping in a small pool. It was the first sound he heard. The darkness suddenly became less pronounced, the walls seemed to emanate a soft glow, growing brighter, and he could see the overturned table, the ripped up couch, the partially caved in ceiling. And three people shaped lumps, hanging from the banisters, perfectly still.

A scream caught in his throat and he started choking, desperately closing his eyes tightly, but even with his eyes closed he saw what was right in front of him, the light now bright as if the sun was shining through the high windows, which was how it had been at the time.

Dripping. A red pool, right below them, spreading out through the living room, forming a small stream as it ran down the steps through the front door. At that point he started to suspect it was just a dream, a nightmare, there couldn't possibly be so much blood coming from just three people, could there?

He stared into the vacant eyes of his mother, upside down, hardly recognizable with that horrified expression on her face. They burned into him, he could feel her dead look on him, accusing him and he finally found the workings of his limbs again. He bolted, running past them up the stairs, tripping and staggering to his room. He slammed the door behind him and threw himself on his bed, sobbing uncontrollably.

Danny woke up with the sun shining in his face and rubbed his eyes in annoyance. He must have forgotten to close the curtains last night when he crashed on his bed. With some difficulty he focussed his eyes on his alarm clock, but it was dead.

"Power failure," he thought groggily as he tried to estimate the time by the position of the sunbeams shining through his window. About eight in the morning, he decided. He debated himself if he should just turn around and sleep some more, but decided against it. Slowly, with his eyes closed, he sat up and swayed his legs out of the bed. For a moment he just sat there, then stood up and staggered to the door, shaking his head as he briefly recalled the nightmare from last night. Yawning he dragged himself to the bathroom, unaware of the red smear he left on the door as he closed it behind him.

* * *

_This is what happens if I just start writing with no real direction..._


	14. 29: Happiness

A/N: Have you all seen the Danny Phantom Fanfic Awards ChaosDragon is doing? (http :// dpfanficawards. livejournal. com/ - delete the spaces). I'm happy to say that no less than two (!) of my drabbles have been nominated (thank you Cordria and whoever else did that). So the good news is that there is now a whole collection of awesome fics listed in one place for me to read, the bad news is that the more I read the less I write.

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom

* * *

29. Happiness

_Zing..._

The huge robotic ghost held up the knife he had been honing, examining the edge carefully, meticulously. It gleamed greenish in the swirling emptiness that was the ghost zone, and for a moment he could see his smile reflecting in the blade, a smile that would have set any ghost running if they could.

_Zing..._

The unlucky ghosts packed in the cage close by would have happily done just that, running, flying away, but they had the relative ease of mind in that they knew the knife wasn't being sharpened for them. Other than that, they could well have done without the sight of Skulker smiling, even humming to himself.

_Zing..._

Skulker hummed the tune that had been in the back of his head all day, only frowning slightly when he recognized the tune as being Ember's. For a moment he stopped, contemplating his blue haired ex-girlfriend. The smile faltered a little, but only a little, before returning full force and he continued his humming. Ember had called him a loser, the worst hunter of the ghost zone, a pathetic glob that couldn't scare a bunny if he tried. But he had proven her wrong.

_Zing..._

Again he examined the knife and, finally satisfied, put it aside carefully on the table next to him. Then he grabbed the next one, an oddly shaped knife with quite a few dents and rusty spots on it as if it hadn't been used in quite a while.

_Zing..._

The collective of ghosts huddled together in the cage, not by choice but because of the lack of space, winced at the sight of this new knife. They knew all to well what it was for and as by a silent agreement, they avoided looking at the single ghost sitting in the cage next to them, sitting in the corner with his hands around his knees, unmoving. He would have loved moving, screaming, shaking the bars of his cage, but he was kept in place by a tightly spun net that was pressing into his skin. On top of that, his hands and feet were cuffed and his mouth was sealed off with some green goo, the smell of which made him slightly nauseous.

_Zing..._

His big green eyes watched the hunter in horror, fascinated by the sound of the honing of the knives, the gleaming of the blade and especially the eerie smile on the ghost's metallic face. It paralyzed him even more effectively than he already was and the simple fact that he knew that the last thing he'd hear was that innocuous sound of a knife being sharpened almost drove him over the edge. Not that anyone would actually notice if he did go mad. He. Could. Not. Move.

_Zing..._

Skulker meanwhile was well aware of the frightened green eyes watching him and a feeling of satisfaction flooded through him. He had finally done it. Him, the greatest hunter of the ghost zone, had finally caught the infamous Danny Phantom, soon to be decorating the wall of his liar. All the other ghosts would fear him and respect him and maybe he would even allow Ember to come and apologize to him for her harsh remarks.

_Zing..._

Skulker held up the knife, satisfied. His beautiful knives, once again ready for action. This was true happiness.

* * *

_Admit it, only I could come up with a story like this for a title like this..._


	15. 44: Two Roads

A/N: Companion piece to 'Memories'. Can be read without reading that story though.

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

44. Two Roads

He was sitting in his comfortable chair in his library for the last time, surrounded by his books on the shelves that ran up all the way to the ceiling. It was dark in here, the only light coming from the powerful lamp next to his chair that lit the book on his lap. He wasn't looking at it though, he had looked at that particular page in that particular book too often in the last twenty-five years, he knew exactly what was there.

Instead, he gazed at the huge fireplace across the room, careful to look only at the bottom part of it, not wanting to look at the huge painting of himself that hung right above it. He couldn't bear to look at himself anymore and he knew it was time to end it all.

The door opened softly and a dark figure entered, carrying a pile of books. Vlad tore his gaze from the fireplace and forced himself to look at the boy. Not a boy anymore, a man now. A very powerful man.

"You sent for me, father?"

His voice was quiet, polite, obedient and Vlad knew he was totally loyal to him, willing to lay down his life for him if necessary. He placed the books carefully on the desk and then stood quietly to attention, awaiting Vlad's command as always, his hands clasped behind his back, his feet planted firmly on the thick carpet, about a foot apart. Perfect balance. It still amazed Vlad that the clumsy boy had achieved that.

"Have you spoken to your mother?"

Daniel nodded. "She'll be here shortly."

Vlad avoided his eyes, those eyes that had been so full of life five years ago, blazing with rage at his capture, defying him even after he had tortured the boy, beaten him into obedience. They were dead now, void of any emotion even when he killed. This was one of Vlad's greatest accomplishments, the turning of Danny Fenton, the ghost boy and super hero Danny Phantom, into Daniel Masters, perfectly groomed in his black dress pants, short black hair, long sleeved shirt that covered the scars on his wrists. That was what the outside world saw, a well behaved, intelligent young man, heir to his estate and the DALV company. Ruthless, like his father.

The door opened again and Maddie Masters entered, nervously moving her hands over her dark blue dress, but with that perpetual half smile on her face. She walked closer and stood still next to her son, who was now at least a head taller than she was. Vlad saw her eyes flicker in pain for a moment when she glanced at Daniel, but it was gone instantly and she looked back at him, trying to look adoring.

"You asked to see me, cupcake?" she asked sweetly.

His second accomplishment. Maddie Fenton had become Maddie Masters four years ago, after her husband died in a freak accident in the lab under their house. An accident he had orchestrated, no, Daniel had orchestrated. The boy had already been in his hands for a year at that time, undergoing a rigorous training both physical and mental. Vlad had squashed the boy's personality, tore him apart at the seams and then rebuilt him according to his own liking, his own image. _His_ son.

It had taken some convincing and applying pressure, not only from him but also from Daniel, to get Maddie to marry him, but all she had wanted at that time was to be with her son, not realizing how much the boy had changed. How he had been... destroyed.

Vlad looked at the pair standing quietly before him, the young man waiting patiently, ignoring his mother as always, the woman fretting, trying to hide her fear. It had taken a long time for Vlad to realize that this wasn't what he wanted, that he had made a wrong decision, that he should never have come down this road.

"I'm going away for a while," he said and he studied their reaction to that.

He had never left them for more than a day in the last few years and even when he did, he checked up on them. He could never bring himself to trust them completely, even though he knew they wouldn't try anything.

It pained him to see the relief wash over Maddie's face and then her struggle to keep it inside, to not show it. Daniel's eyes flickered for a moment, but he remained quiet, his face expressionless. Vlad sighed, closed the college yearbook on his lap and placed it on the small table next to the chair. He stood up, walked to the fireplace and pulled the candle on the right side of it, causing the fireplace to slide sideways and revealing the stairs that led down to his lab.

"I'm sorry."

He spoke these last words without turning around, slowly descending the stairs, the sound of his footsteps echoing in the long hallway. The secret door closed behind him and he knew he would never see them again, even though their image was burned onto his retina. He blinked, forcing away the tears that suddenly tried to leak out of his eyes, furious that he'd let his emotions get the better of him for a moment.

The lab was empty and apart from the humming of the different computers and the ghost equipment being charged, quiet. His ghost portal was open, as always, since no ghost dared to enter his castle uninvited. Well, except for Klemper of course. He transformed as he closed in on the portal and in one fluid motion went through it, entering the swirling green of the ghost zone.

Without wasting time he set out course to the one ghost that could help him undo the mess he had made of not only his life, but also that of Maddie and Daniel, Clockwork. He had gone to see him a week ago, when he had come to realize he was at a dead end, that the road he had chosen was the wrong one, that he would never have what he wanted the most: Maddie's and Daniel's love. All he had was her fear and his dead eyed loyalty and only on the outside they seemed like a happy family.

The eerie glowing and swirling of the ghost zone passed him by, seemingly endless and confusing to anybody who didn't know his way around. Vlad didn't need a map, he had been there so many times he could probably find his way blindfolded and it wasn't long before he reached the more remote, empty part of the ghost zone that contained the strange castle that was Clockwork's liar.

He landed softly in front of it and then hesitated for a moment. Was he really ready go give it all up? Before he could get his confused mind in order however, the huge door opened, inviting him to come in. Of course Clockwork knew he had arrived, after all, the ancient ghost of time knew everything.

Quickly, before he could change his mind, he entered and swiftly walked to the center of the castle, passing the huge gears and dials, towards the swirling gray mirrors that allowed the time master to view all that was, is and could have been. The possibilities were endless and again Vlad felt the surge of jealousy go through him when he neared the floating form of an old man with glowing red eyes, a large staff in his hands with a clock on top of it. He knew better than to act on it though.

"Hello Vlad, come to tell me your decision?"

The old man shifted to a child and then back to a young man, making Vlad feel slightly uncomfortable. He suspected that Clockwork did it on purpose, to emphasize his antiquity and wisdom.

"I.. I have a condition," Vlad said, silently cursing himself for stuttering.

Clockwork smiled.

"I know," he said, "You wish to see what will become of them."

Vlad steeled himself. "Yes. Or no deal."

Clockwork studied him for a moment, as if trying to gauge whether he was up to it.

"Very well."

The time master turned around and pointed his staff to one of the mirrors, causing it to clear instantly. Vlad drifted closer and squinted at it, trying to discern what it was he saw.

He could see a park, enclosed with three and four story buildings, some sort of campus. Amity Park Community College, he realized as he recognized the place. People were walking on the paths, mostly in pairs, chatting quietly, happily. But his eyes were drawn almost immediately to a lone figure crossing the grass, dressed all in black and carrying a battered backpack that seemed to be filled with books. He was looking at the ground and Vlad couldn't see his face, because his long black hair hung in front of it, yet he knew that this was Danny Fenton. The alternate Danny Fenton.

He studied the young man coming closer to where he was watching, frowning. _This_ was what would become of Daniel if he changed the way things would go? This sloppy, skinny figure with long hair, not even closely resembling the powerful, confident, strong being he created, but a punk? He looked disapprovingly at the tattered combat boots and the spiked wristbands. Then he realized what those wristbands were covering and he winced.

"Scarred for life," he thought, then, "I caused that."

Vlad stepped back automatically when Danny came very close to the point from where he was viewing him, but the boy stopped before he could pass him by and looked up. To Vlad's dismay he looked tired and worn out, his eyes bloodshot and haunted, his expression grim. He was about to speak up, to tell the ghost of time that the deal was off when he saw Clockwork raise his hand to silence him, as if he already knew what Vlad was going to say.

Vlad closed his mouth and continued to watch the scene unfold. Danny appeared to be looking around, scanning the area, searching for something and then suddenly everything changed.

A strange looking van came into view, adorned with a satellite dish and several odd looking protrusions which would look eccentric to the innocent onlooker, but were recognized by Vlad as being an array of ghost weapons. It stopped and Vlad was not surprised to see Maddie jumping out from behind the wheel. If Jack had been driving, the arrival would not have been as quiet.

Danny waved and smiled, lighting up his face and the tired look was gone. He walked over to his mother and hugged her briefly, then pulled a Fenton thermos from his backpack and handed it to her, saying something Vlad couldn't hear and gesturing towards the buildings to their right. Maddie nodded, reached into the car and handed him a new thermos. Danny looked at his watch, gave her a hurried kiss for which, Vlad noticed, he had to bend down and took off in a slow jog, his backpack awkwardly bouncing on his back.

Maddie stared after him and Vlad thought she looked worried, but happy. Then the image faded away, leaving only a slow swirling white fog. He closed his eyes and let the image sink in for a moment, before turning to Clockwork.

"Well?"

Vlad let out an angry growl, irritated by the smug tone of voice from the ancient ghost.

"You know everything. So you know my decision as well. I cannot go down this road again."

Another wave of Clockwork's staff showed another image in the mirror, frozen in time. The same image Clockwork had shown him a week ago, when he had first come to him for advice. He saw himself, five years ago, standing in the doorway of Danny's room, a surprised and frightened look on his face. On the other side of the room was Danny, glowing, sweating, looking frightening in his attempt to free himself from the wristbands Vlad used to control him with in the beginning of his capture. He had managed to get one off already, leaving a deep burn wound on his wrist and Vlad thought he could actually see bone shining through.

He knew what had happened after that. He had run over to his son, had grabbed his wrists and had yelled at him to stop hurting himself. The boy had broken down and collapsed against him, sobbing, saying he was sorry, he loved him, called him father. From that moment on, everything had been easy. In retrospect, this had been the beginning of the end. According to Clockwork, this was the pivotal moment, this was where the change had to be made. Danny Fenton must be allowed to escape.

"You know what to do."

It wasn't a question and Vlad nodded. Two black rings appeared around his waist, transforming him back to his vulnerable human form. He turned from the image to face Clockwork and his eyes widened in fear when he saw the scythe coming at him, the time ghost's face set in an evil grin. A blinding pain, then nothing.

* * *

He stood in the doorway, looking at his son in fear and was about to rush to him to stop him when a thought hit him. 

"Don't!"

It stopped him cold and the fear he had up until then been suppressing, washed over him like a tidal wave, making him step back involuntarily. He felt the boy grow more powerful, accessing, feeding from his fear and he knew he was now unable to stop him.

The blast hit him hard and he flew out of the room into the hallway, coming to a full stop against the wall opposing the door to Danny's room. Consciousness was fading away and as he smelled his burned skin and singed clothes, one last fleeting memory of his decision flared. He'd taken the second road now, the one that would deprive him of his son, the love of his life and would ultimately claim his life.

It was a price worth paying.


	16. 82: Can You Hear Me?

A/N: Sorry about this one, it's kinda dorky, but I needed _something _for this title...

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

82. Can You Hear Me?

"Hi Danny, how are you doing?"

_Hi Sam._

She was quiet for a while, seemingly unsure of what to say next and she moved around the room some, picking up a 'Get Well' card and then putting it back in it's place. The room smelled like flowers and antiseptic, a strange combination.

"We eh, we caught Technus today. Remember when I told you last week he had been rampaging the computer factory and we couldn't catch him?"

_Yeah..._

"Well, we took out all of Tucker's equipment and put it in the middle of the park, his laptop, his cell phones – did you know he has _three_ of them – his PDAs, everything. You should have heard him, it was like we were taking his children!"

_Ha ha. Wish I could've seen his face too._

"It was bait, see. And he fell for it too. Tucker himself sucked him in the thermos and after that he hugged his game computer, can you imagine that?"

_Sure I can. Great job Sam, I'm really proud of you guys._

Again, a silence settled over the room, not uncomfortable, but companionable. She shuffled her feet some and rested her hands on the edge of the bed. Then she grabbed the chair that was standing in the corner, pulled it closer to the bed and sat down on it.

"Mr Lancer asked about you. He said some very nice things about you too. It was really weird, I thought he didn't like you. Said that if you had put your mind to it, you could have done really well and that it had always disappointed him that you had neglected your schoolwork, as he put it."

_Mr Lancer said nice things about me? The world must be coming to an end..._

"It crept me out a little though. It sounded to me as if... he was talking about you as if... don't get mad now, I'm not the one that was saying all this you know, but he was talking about you as if you were in the past. Like you were already dead. And you're not."

_People are giving up on me? Come on, it hasn't been that long has it? How long has it been? It's hard to tell time here..._

"It's been a year now. I can't believe how much time has passed. We're doing alright though. We... I just wish..."

_Yeah, me too. Oh Sam, don't cry, I hate it when you cry, you never cry. Come on, I'm not some dead animal or some poor neglected tree..._

"I'm sorry Danny, I know you hate it when I cry. There's just.. so many things I wanted to tell you, so many things we still need to do and I always thought we had plenty of time for that and now look at you..."

_Hey, we can still do them! And you're talking to me now, aren't you?_

She stood up and pushed the chair back to where it came from

"I should go, my mom is waiting for me downstairs. It's really strange talking to you like this, Danny. You know, I don't even know if you can hear me..."

She looked down at the pale face of the boy laying down on the hospital bed, unmoving, his eyes closed. The hair on the right side of his head had grown back now, the scar on his forehead only a thin line. He looked peaceful, asleep. On impulse, she bend over and quickly pecked him on his right cheek.

"Bye Danny. I'll see you again next week."

* * *

_Yeah, I know, another 'Danny in a coma' fic. Live with it :)  
_


	17. 81: Pen and Paper

A/N: Let's torture somebody else for a change...:)

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

81. Pen and Paper

This was not a good day, Tucker mused, as he walked the last few steps to school, early for once. He was getting stared at, people going as far as completely turning around when he passed them, going up the steps to the main entrance. Passing Mr Lancer, he cringed a little under the overweight teacher's scrutiny, but the man remained quiet. When he stepped inside, he heard the conversation behind him resume with a new buzz to it. Definitely not a good day.

The hallway was not very crowded, most students were still outside, trying to stay away from the academic atmosphere in the school as long as possible. He walked to his locker unchallenged, his normal happy face set in a hostile scowl, discouraging any sympathetic looks.

A sudden coldness beside him alerted him to the arrival of his closest friend, a friend who he could do very well without for once. He glared in the general direction of the origin of the coldness and the fact that Danny didn't become immediately visible told him the boy expected to be whacked on the head by him.

"Come out," he said to the cold air, "I know you're there."

"Promise you won't suck me into that thermos with Technus."

Tucker looked at the Fenton Thermos he was still holding, tempted for a moment. But he didn't know what the outcome would be if he put Danny in there with the technology obsessed ghost and decided he wasn't that cruel. For a very brief moment he wondered if, were he ever to become a ghost, he would be like Technus. But he very carefully didn't voice that thought.

"Alright. I promise I won't suck you into _this_ thermos."

A sigh of relief sounded somewhere from Tucker's right and Danny Phantom shimmered into view, carefully looking up and down the hallway. Deciding an all clear, he let the two bright rings appear around his waist and transformed back into his less conspicuous form of a normal school boy. He studied Tucker.

"Heh. You look, ehm, stressed," Danny said nervously, rubbing the back of his neck.

Tucker just growled at him, turned and with a fierce determination started turning the knob of his locker, muttering to himself when he didn't get the combination right the first time. And the second time. The hallway started to fill up with students, laughing, hurrying, slamming their lockers, brushing past Tucker as he was trying to turn the knob with jerky movements, growing increasingly annoyed with himself.

"Here, let me."

He hadn't heard her coming. Sam gently pushed him aside, opened his locker for him and then stepped back quickly, as if she didn't want to be in the way of his anger. Tucker saw her glance at Danny, her face questioning, but he didn't meet her eyes. She turned back to Tucker.

"Care to tell me what happened?"

Again, Tucker's anger flared and he stared daggers at Danny, who now started backing away. Then he looked back at Sam, who was waiting impatiently for an explanation. He knew what she saw, he had seen his reflection in the water of the fountain in the park. His hair was standing in all directions, as if he had been electrocuted, his face was covered with black smears, the left arm of his shirt was shredded and worst of all, his backpack was smoking.

"Mr Inviso Bill here," he said between clenched teeth, "Thought it would be a good idea to try out if he could mimic Technus's electromagnetic power ray. And. It. Worked."

Sam raised her eyebrows, incomprehension clearly on her face as she looked between her friends, one fuming, one flustering. Then it hit her.

"Oh no. He fried your PDA?"

"Yes," Tucker shouted, "_And_ my laptop. _And_ my phone. _And_ my second PDA. And _me_!"

He dumped his backpack, full of now worthless electronics on the floor and winced at the blaring sound of the bell, signifying students to hurry up and get to class. Sam bend over, tentatively opened it and recoiled from the burning stench coming from it.

"Ew. Looks terrible."

"Terrible...! How am I gonna do my homework! How am I going to take notes in class! How am I gonna rewrite that essay that was on my computer, huh!"

Tucker was glaring at Danny, who shrunk a little with each shouted complaint and tried to keep Sam between him and his angry friend. She looked behind her and shot him an angry look. Then she turned back to Tucker, smiling.

"I'll help you with your essay," she said, "As for your other problems..."

She reached inside her own locker, rummaged a little between her books and two spare thermoses and grabbed something. Tucker's eyes bulged when he saw what it was.

"No way..." he said.

She smiled sweetly and held it in front of him. Tucker was shaking his head, holding his hands in front of him as if to ward off an unspeakable horror, refusing to consider the unthinkable.

"You'd better take it," she said, "Class starts in three, two, one..."

Tucker grabbed the pen and paper and ran.


	18. 43: Dying

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

43. Dying

I don't know why I'm still here. If the world were a logical place, I would have died in that accident, the electricity and the ectoplasm that seared through me were enough to kill an elephant. And in a sense, I did die. A painful, horrible death it was, I can't even begin to describe what it felt like. Like being turned inside out, torn, shredded apart and then put back together again. I remember every second of it.

And I was dead. I mean, really dead. No heartbeat, no breathing, cold. Dead. Yet I was still there, ectoplasm with a form, a memory, a name. The shock of that was actually worse than the physical pain I had suffered moments before. I died. And then I lived again.

To go back to that warm, breathing form that was me was the best that had ever happened to me. I felt ecstatic, high. No drug could ever accomplish what I felt right then. What I still feel when I change back to my 'normal' form, though in a lesser extend. It's great to be alive, to just sit there with your eyes closed, listening to your own heartbeat, pretending to be a normal boy.

Normal being relative, of course. I can shoot ecto beams even in my human form, I can go intangible, invisible whenever I want to in the blink of an eye. But when I really have to go all out, to fight some ghost that is harassing the town, I have to die again.

There's no pain to it, not really, only the memory of pain. Whenever I reach for that other form, that cold form that is also me, I remember how I got to be this way. Every time I change into Danny Phantom, I get electrocuted again in a sense and my body goes cold and lifeless. It is both incredibly scary and incredibly... enticing at the same time. When I'm like that, I can do anything. The power that I hold is incredible. Nobody, not even my friends or sister, know what I'm really capable of, the destruction I could cause. And my powers are still growing.

I live... I die... and then I live again. That's really all there is to it. That's what you see when those two white rings appear around my waist. That's me dying. And then living again.


	19. 83: Heal

A/N: This must have been done a zillion times... but it's fun to write. Fluff!

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

83. Heal

His flight was erratic, wavering, barely staying on course as his watering eyes had trouble discerning what was on the ground about fifty feet below him. Green ectoplasm covered his hazemat suit almost entirely, and in fact he was leaving a strangely glowing green trail in the air, which was slowly drifting to the ground as if it were only marginally subject to the law of gravity.

His arms were wrapped around his torso while he kept going, slowly but surely, homing in on the place he always ended up after a bad fight, the place that represented warmth and safety and a caring person. He could see it from a distance, seemingly cold and dark at this time of night, yet he knew he was expected, not because she would know something had happened, but because of the _possibility_ something had happened.

He didn't stop outside her window to knock, as he normally would have, but instead barged right in, willing himself intangible with his last strength to enter her room, half through the window and half through the wall. Not that that made any difference to him. As soon as he was completely in her room – and he looked back to check that he indeed did not have any body part still inside the wall – he changed back to his human form and fell to the ground with a soft thud.

He groaned painfully and heard her cry out while scrambling out of her bed, obviously having been asleep. He smelled her scent – roses, he thought illogically, she smells like roses... oh, must be her soap or something – as she tentatively touched him, softly asking him where he was hurt and he wanted to tell her everywhere.

She moved away for a moment, reaching under her bed for the first aid kit and then told him to lay still, she was going to get a towel to clean the blood off. He wanted to tell her, sure, he wasn't going anywhere, but she was already gone.

When she came back she started talking again and he listened to her stream of words which didn't seem to make any sense. It didn't matter, her voice was enough to him. She was dipping the towel in a bowl of water and gently wiped the blood of his face, his arms, his torso, exposing the cuts and bruises he had collected earlier in a fight with Skulker, now safely tucked away in his thermos.

When she was done, she started working on covering them up, wrapping him in what seemed like a hundred yards of bandages, making him roll over, roll back and finally sit up. He didn't flinch once, used to the treatment by now, giving himself over to her skillful wrapping. He was already healing, he could feel the wounds closing up, in the morning he would be able to disperse the more conspicuous bandaging, no one would be the wiser. Physically, he would be fine.

She helped him up and he took two staggering steps, then fell on her bed, face down. He turned his head sideways and watched her as she took his blood soaked shirt and tossed it into the bowl of water. He'd take it home with him later and rinse out the remaining blood, then toss it in the laundry. Routine.

The bed was soft and he could feel her warmth still in it. She climbed next to him and pushed him aside to make room for her. He winced at her treatment of him but didn't complain, as she kept talking to him in that soft voice, making him relax. This was the real reason he was here, this was why he didn't go home and let his sister deal with the bandages. He had super powers and with it came these unique healing capabilities, but it's potency didn't extend to the mind.

Slowly he let go of the stress, the fear and the lurking darkness in his mind that seemed to be there more often lately. The lack of sleep caught up with him, his eyes blinked slowly, but he tried to stay awake a little while longer, staring into her purple eyes, strangely darkened because of the lack of light in the room. Her voice faltered when she saw his unwavering gaze and after a moment she smiled hesitantly at him, before continuing to talk about anything and everything.

One fleeting moment he felt like he should tell her, just tell her and to hell with the consequences, then the moment passed somehow. It didn't matter now anyway, she was his refuge, his savior, his healer both body and soul. He couldn't stay awake any longer and drifted off in a mercifully dreamless sleep.

* * *

_Awwww... Wasn't that sweet? I feel like brushing my teeth now...:)  
_


	20. 30: Under the Rain

A/N: Twenty! Twenty down, eighty to go... tell me again _why _I'm doing this?

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

30. Under the Rain

The school had gone out hours ago, even the last of the students having detention had long gone, off to celebrate their belated start of the weekend at the Nasty Burger. Jazz had watched her brother and his friends leave through the window of the chemistry lab on the second floor, sighing to herself and for the first time wondering what she was doing here, preparing for the meeting of the science club next Monday, while she could be out having fun.

Not that she would have gone to the Nasty Burger for that, the place was just so... nasty. Always packed with students who were throwing fries at each other, while consuming huge amounts of junk food of which the fat was clogging their arteries. Girls like Paulina would wander around the restaurant so the boys could stare at her, boosting her ego and giving her the chance of turning them down, just because she could.

Jazz wrinkled her nose. Even her brother was drooling over the girl, and the way he made a fool of himself embarrassed her. Again, she stared at the stack of papers she was holding and suddenly decided that enough was enough, it was Friday night, she would go home, call one of her friends and go to a movie. There must be something at the theater worth watching, other than Dead Teacher XVIII.

Neatly she put everything back where it belonged, looked behind her one more time to check if everything was in order and quickly walked down the stairs to the main entrance, calling a 'Have a nice weekend' at Mr Lancer, who was still in his office. He waved at her without looking up, seemingly engrossed in a book he was reading.

She opened the heavy door and stopped. It was raining. Hard. It was a steady downpour, causing a thin layer of water on the asphalt of the deserted parking lot, deserted but for her own car, standing at the far end. She was going to get soaked.

For a moment, she deliberated going back in and wait for it to stop raining, but the gray sky gave no indication that it would stop any time soon. She could of course go back to the chemistry lab and finish her preparations for Monday, but the thought of that somehow repulsed her. She would just have to brave the rain and accept the fact that she would get really wet.

She was just about to step into the rain, when a sudden chill stopped her. The goose bumps on her arms told her a ghost was nearby and she was just about to scream, when Danny shimmered into view.

"Hi sis," he said.

He was floating a few feet away from her, glowing slightly, having an impish smile on his face. The rain was soaking him, making his white hair hang in loose strands over his face. Jazz tried to look sternly at him, but failed miserably.

"You almost gave me a heart attack," she said, without malice.

Immediately his hand rose up to his neck to start rubbing it, and he tilted his head to look at her through his wet hair.

"Sorry," he said.

Jazz sighed. "It's alright. What are you doing here?"

Danny's face lit up and he gave her a goofy grin. Reaching behind his back he pulled out his thermos and shook it.

"Guess who's in here," he said.

Jazz rolled her eyes. "Doesn't he ever give up?" she asked and she thought she could make out a muffled 'beware' from inside the device.

"Never."

He landed on his feet beside her and she felt the cold radiating from him, making her shiver. Her brother looked at her and then at the car that was standing on the other side of the parking lot.

"Need an umbrella?" he asked.

Before she could answer he had stepped out into the rain again, pointed his finger upwards and created a glowing green half-dome. The rain fell on top of it and slid down the surface in small streams, sparkling in the green glow and dripping from the edge.

Smiling, Jazz stepped under the improvised umbrella and together they crossed the parking lot, walking closely together, in silence. When they reached her car, she quickly got in and turned to face him.

"Want a ride home?"

He shook his head and the green half dome vanished as she closed the door.

"Thanks little bro," she said as she started the car.

He waved at her and took off, and Jazz noticed that the raindrops that slid down his body momentarily picked up some of the soft white glow. She watched him fly away, leaving a short trail of glowing raindrops.

* * *

_I seriously need to get back to the creepy stuff..._


	21. 8: Innocence

A/N: Enough with the fluff!

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

8. Innocence

Slowly, Danny made his way through the carnage, stepping over bodies and debris, trying to avoid looking into the dead eyes that were staring up into the deceptively blue sky. It was a beautiful day, birds were singing, a slight breeze scattering the smoke of the burnt out buildings, bringing the scent of pine trees from the park. He felt out of place, strangely alive in this place of death, like _he_ was the intruder here.

The quiet of the place was disconcerting, the only sound coming from his feet on what was left of the street, while he was making his way towards the middle of the disaster area, a place no one had been able to get close to for the past two days. In the distance, he could hear the soft thud-thud-thud of yet another helicopter that was trying to fly over the area.

He had been here only for ten minutes, and already he wanted out of here, just run back to where he had sneaked through the corridor that had been placed around the area by the police, the army and the GIW in an unusual collaboration. The cooperation of the three services, however, was strained at best, and they were still bickering about how to approach the matter when Danny had decided, despite the protests of his friends and sister, to take matters into his own hands.

Getting in had been easy, with Sam and Tucker creating a small diversion to allow him to sneak past the guards, and then forcing his half-human body through the strong ghost shield that had been erected by his parents. That had hurt, and it was also the reason he was still human now, he had needed to recover from the sharp shocks that had raked his body when he went through, forcing him to crawl the last few feet to get away from it. But he'd made it, and he was nearing what seemed to be ground zero from the absolute devastation, the total annihilation of everything standing.

He stumbled and fell to his knees with a groan, then turned to see what he had tripped over. He almost choked when he saw what it was: an arm. It's hand was curled into a claw, as if desperately trying to get away from something, and Danny thought he saw a thin wedding band gleaming in the sunlight. But what really unnerved him was that the arm wasn't attached to anyone.

It had been a bad idea. He closed his eyes for a moment, knowing he would never get the images out of his mind, the debris, the dead eyes, the clawing hand. On the other hand, who else was going to defeat the ghost that had caused all this? Clenching his jaw, willing his eyes open, he stared purposefully at the arm again, directing his emotions away from the terror and the repulsion, converting them to anger. He would get her for this.

Scrambling to his feet again, he decided that he had recovered enough, that it was time to end it all. Keeping his eyes straight ahead, looking at the flat area in front of him, completely clear of debris, he reached for his ghost form. It came swiftly, as always, sweeping over him like a cold fire, giving him a sense of endless power crackling at his fingertips. He hovered for a moment, then moved forward, aware of the helicopter that was still approaching. He'd better hurry, or this one would go the way the others had gone, exploding in a huge ball of fire and crashing on the ground, with no hope for survivors.

She was sitting in the middle of the blackened area, which was perfectly circular, about a hundred yards across. There was nothing there but black dust, yet her white dress was clean, untouched, spotless. She was playing with her doll, singing softly to it, cradling it in her arms, looking like the perfect little girl Sam's mother yearned to have. Her brown curls framed her pretty four year old face, and she looked up at Danny, smiling.

"Hello," she said, "Wanna play with me?"

Danny steeled himself, knowing, telling himself that this wasn't really an innocent little girl, this was a very dangerous ghost, who had committed mass murder in a matter of minutes after her arrival two days ago. He'd let her go then, deceived by her looks, convinced that she was harmless. She wasn't. He pushed away the thought that he was, in a way, responsible for all of this. He'd deal with that later.

"No," he said hoarsely, "You have to go."

She looked at him and her eyes started to water. Danny felt his determination falter, and he knew that this was the small ghost's most effective weapon. She could wrap you around her little finger with those big green eyes and her quivering lips. He couldn't do it. Not this little girl. But then her spell lessened, as her attention was drawn to the approaching helicopter.

She turned her head to look up, her eyes suddenly glowing a menacing red. She didn't move, she just looked at the helicopter, which had APNN painted on it in huge capitals. Amity Park News Network, Danny thought, just what he needed, a couple of morons trying to get themselves killed for a good story.

The little girls eyes started to glow even brighter and Danny knew he had to act quickly, before she could send that devastatingly red hot beam from her eyes at them. He brought his fists together, making them glow bright green, and launched a powerful ectoblast at her, sending her flying.

She hadn't expected that, she had thought she still had him under her spell. He could see it in her eyes, as she looked at him in surprise and anger, trying to get up from the edge of the clearing. He blasted her again and this time she screamed in rage, but he had her now.

Quickly, he flew over to where she had disappeared behind a large boulder, part of a building that had been standing there, before her destructive whims had brought it down and turned it into a collection of stones and ashes. She was trying to get up, struggling, her head hanging and her hair obscuring her eyes. He could hear the helicopter follow them and, fearing that they would get in range of her eyes again, he took out his thermos and sucked her in.

Warily he looked around. This had been a little too easy. True, he had caught her by surprise, she would have given him a hard time if she hadn't been distracted by that stupid helicopter, but somehow it seemed wrong. Something was missing.

The helicopter was now hovering above him, it's noise thundering in his ears and blowing away the dust from the ground. He looked up, straight into the frightened face of the camera man, who was staring at him with his mouth open. Then he said something, Danny could see his mouth move, and it looked suspiciously like 'Oh, shit'.

The helicopter took off in a hurry, flying away from him in a straight line, and Danny thought that seemed stupid, if he had wanted to blow them out of the sky they couldn't be an easier target this way. What bothered him though was that they took off like that, while before they had always wanted to talk to him, interview him, get him to say something, anything.

He looked around again, suddenly tired, trying to block out the destruction and the loss of human life. He needed to inform the people back at the corridor that the ghost was caught, that they could now safely enter the area and clean it up. Then, after they let down the ghost shield, he could sneak back to his friends, turn human again and pretend he had been with them the whole time. Piece of cake.

The ghost shield was still up, he saw, and it surprised him. Surely, the news network people had informed the collective armed forces here that the ghost had been caught? He floated closer, nearing the shield, getting as close as he dared. Touching it in his ghost form was painful at best, and it could revert him to his human form in front of all these people at worst. The ghost shield, however, seemed to be the least of his problems. He stopped about ten feet away from it, unnerved by the number of cannons directed at him.

One of the GIW, having obviously appointed himself as spokesman, stepped forward, approaching the ghost shield on the other side, until he was almost touching it. He glared at Danny, who was taken aback by the anger on the man's face.

"What are your demands," the white-clad government man said through gritted teeth.

"W-what?" Danny asked, uncomprehending.

"Your demands! I assume you have hostages?"

The GIW could hardly contain his anger. Danny looked at the people standing behind the man, policemen at their cars, doors opened, ready to fire their, admittedly useless, guns at him. Heavily armed soldiers, equally useless. GIW... not so useless.

"Hostages?"

He needed to buy time, needed to figure out what was going on here, why they seemed to be blaming him for all of this. The GIW got impatient.

"You killed that little girl in front of the cameras as an example! Everybody, the whole world saw what you did! Now what are your demands, Phantom!"

The man was shouting now, his face red from anger. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Danny realized that that was indeed what it must have looked like.

"N-no," Danny stuttered, trying to salvage the situation, "No, no hostages. Look, I..."

The GIW was no longer listening. He turned around at the collected fire power behind him.

"FIRE!"


	22. 34: Stars

A/N: Dunno what this is.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

34. Stars

He was floating on his back, his hands behind his head, gazing upwards. This high up in the sky, above the clouds, the streetlights couldn't interfere with the view. There was no moon, and yet it wasn't completely dark. The clouds below him glittered in the starlight, exhibiting a fairy tale landscape, with high snow covered mountains and deep valleys. Imagination could put rivers down there, and tiny houses, a railroad track, a horse pulling a cart late at night. Danny had no interest in the clouds.

He was drifting, his mind empty, taking in the vastness of space and the billions of stars out there, mind boggling distances away from him. Every time he tried to grasp the enormity of what he was seeing, he felt himself growing smaller, more insignificant. A deep yearning to be out there, to look down on the earth, to travel to other planets, other stars even, took hold of him, and for a moment he let himself dream that one day, he would.

He smiled in utter happiness, feeling somehow part of that dark emptiness above him, another star among stars. Then, with no regrets, just like he promised himself, he let go of the dream, and plummeted down to the misty mountains below him that lost their apparent substance when he fell right through them. Back to earth, down to reality, life was waiting for him. Life that consisted of eating, sleeping, school and ghost fighting.

The next morning, he took down the last of the NASA posters that had decorated his room all those years. No more dreaming. The stars would forever be up there, he would forever be down here, bound to earth, to Amity Park, keeping the ghosts at bay, so that some day, other people could go out and reach the stars.


	23. 62: Magic

A/N: I still don't think the last one was sad, or depressing... Now _this _is sad.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

62. Magic

The water in the pond was like a mirror, reflecting the trees in the park, the cloudless sky, the swings of the playground next to it, which was surrounded by a fence, preventing the small children that normally played there from falling into the shallow water. The bright sunlight that reflected in the tranquil surface of the pond caused the little girl leaning on that fence to squint.

Her long, black hair in pigtails, sloppy dark blue t-shirt and ripped jeans gave the impression of a strong willed, headstrong, stubborn seven year old. Which was exactly what she was. She had been standing there for ten minutes straight, waiting, willing the blue-with-pink-dots ball that was floating peacefully in the middle of the pond to come back to her. Her lip trembled for a moment, and she glanced quickly to the other side of the playground, where her mother was sitting on a bench, in deep conversation with her grandmother. No help there.

She looked back at the ball, and her tragic expression, especially designed to appeal to her mother, who almost never fell for it, changed into one of annoyance, her trembling lip settling into a pout. She stretched her arms and leaned over the fence.

"Come back to me," she hissed.

Somewhere inside her, she was sure that if she wanted something badly enough, she could make it happen. She furrowed her brow and glared at the ball. It moved.

Slowly, but surely, it moved towards her, making ripples in the calm water. There was no wind, there was no way the ball could just move towards her, and yet there it was, right at the edge, just out of reach of her stretched arms. She bend over a little further, now balancing dangerously on the fence, but before she could topple over the ball jumped out of the water and she grabbed it.

"Wow," she said.

Then she looked around. Had anybody seen what she had just accomplished? The playground was deserted, most children being in school, and her mother was still talking. She could see her gesturing the way she always did, waving her hands in the air to emphasize what she was saying. Her grandmother looked pensive, a slight frown on her face, but she was listening. They were talking about her.

She looked at her wet ball.

"How did I do that?"

A sudden cold breeze touched her bare arm, causing goosebumps, and she shivered. Now suspicious, she purposefully dropped the ball back into the water. It bounced a little, causing ripples to spread on the surface all the way to the other side of the pond. She stared at it.

"Now come back to me," she commanded.

Nothing happened. She glared at the ball again and stretched her arms. The ball jumped out of the water and floated in front of her, suspended in the air as if held by invisible hands. Eyes wide, she stepped back. That coldness was there again, like she was standing in front of an open refrigerator, this time accompanied by a soft chuckle.

"Ghost," she said.

She felt a little fearful, but she tried not to show it. Her mother always told her she had to be brave, although she usually meant braving the other children at her school, now thankfully hundreds of miles away.

The ball started bouncing in the air, as if somebody was throwing it from one hand to the other. She followed it with her eyes.

"Can't you just show yourself?" she asked, now annoyed.

The ball held still again and a few moments passed, as if the ghost was considering this. Then, suddenly, he shimmered into view and she stepped back with a sudden intake of breath. He was transparent, she could hardly see him in the sunlight. He was floating in front of her, his head cocked to one side, his fluorescent green eyes shining unnaturally bright. He held the ball in his right hand and made it twirl on his index finger, before bouncing it back at her.

"Thank you," she said, catching the ball.

He lowered himself to the ground and knelt before her, studying her. The cold he was emanating was intense, but she didn't back away, ignoring the shivers that ran up her spine. Instead, she looked at his vague form, trying to discern what he was. He smiled playfully at her, and she thought he must be a teenager.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Lilly," she answered, "My mom calls me Lillith, but I don't like that name."

"Why aren't you in school?"

"We're visiting my grandparents. We're moving here. I'll never have to go back to that stupid school again."

He grinned and she grinned back. She threw the ball at him and he caught it easily, threw it up into the air a couple of times and then balanced it on his head, making funny faces at her. Then he let it drop back into his hands and frowned.

"Didn't your mother tell you you shouldn't talk to strangers," he said.

"You're a ghost," she pointed out.

"Duh," he said, and she giggled when she saw him roll his eyes.

"You gave me back my ball," she continued in a reasonable tone, as if she was lecturing him, "And my mom's over there with my grandmother."

He glanced in the direction she was pointing and suddenly went very quiet. He was still on the ground, but seemed to become more solid, and she could now make out his white hair that was hanging partially in front of his face, obscuring his features. He seemed older now that she got a better look at him, grown up, and she thought he looked sad. He turned back to her.

"How old are you?"

She saw no reason not to answer. "Seven."

The ghost in front of her shook his head a little, causing the loose strands of white hair to fall away from his face. He looked strained, his mouth set into a thin line.

"Seven," he whispered, "Seven... what about your father, where is he?"

"He's dead. He died before I was born."

The ghost looked at the ground, his hair once again falling in front of his face. He didn't cast a shadow, she saw, the sun was shining right through him.

"Are you... do you mind?" he asked, "I mean, are you sad? Because he's not there?"

"No." She shook her head. "But sometimes mom is sad. She thinks I don't notice, but I do."

"Oh."

She looked at him in amazement.

"Hey mister, don't be sad. Lots of kids don't have a dad. Well, usually it's because they divorced of course. And my mom's really cool. She called my teacher stupid when she said it was my own fault the kids were teasing me."

He dropped her ball and it bounced away from them, coming to a stop against the edge of the sandpit. They both looked at it. The two women on the other side of the playground were saying their goodbyes.

"I think you'd better not mention me," the ghost said.

He seemed to become more transparent, as if he was fading away. He extended his hand and briefly touched her cheek with his glove, smiling fondly at her, and then he was gone.

"Hey," she said, looking around, "Hey, mister, you never told me _your_ name."

"Who are you talking to, Lillith?"

Sam was walking towards her daughter, who was standing near the edge of the water. She wasn't worried though, the fence was there, and besides that her daughter was an excellent swimmer. She frowned at the wet spot on her t-shirt.

"What did you do? How did you get wet?" she asked, touching the girls shirt.

Lillith looked down to see what she meant, and then looked up again.

"My ball fell into the water," she said.

Sam glanced at the pond.

"Oh. So how did you get it out again then?"

Lillith didn't answer right away, seemingly trying to come up with a reasonable answer. Sam knew that look, it meant her daughter was trying to hide something. She also knew it was useless to try and pressure her, so she waited patiently to hear what the girl would come up with now.

"Magic," she said.


	24. 10: Breathe Again

A/N: This is sort of a sequel to 'Dying'. It's longer than I had intended, but I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. All the more reason for you to shoot at it :) And yes, I know I said number 17, 'Blood' would be next and it will be. Next, I mean.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

10. Breathe Again

It was quiet, at last. I was sitting on the roof of the ops center, leaning against the wall, letting the coldness of the structure seep into me. The cold was nice, I felt comfortable with it, familiar. I was cold too, I knew, and in fact I could lower the temperature of a medium sized room by several degrees just by being there. And this, of course, was usually a warning to the people being in that room that there was a ghost around.

I looked out over the town, looking gray and quiet in the twilight of the early morning, the sun being not quite up yet. My town. My _haunt_. That last thought startled me a bit, but it didn't worry me as much as it should have.

I'd spent the last five days hunting ghosts, almost non stop, alternately assisted by Sam or Tucker, who needed to sleep every now and then. I didn't need to sleep. I hadn't changed out of my ghost form the entire time, constantly on the lookout for whatever ghost would make it's appearance next. There really had been no point in 'going human' again. My parents were away to some ghost convention, I didn't need to go to school because it was summer and the ghosts seemed to be on some conspiracy to keep me busy.

They had appeared one after the other, sometimes two or three of the more powerful ghosts, like Skulker and Ember, at the same time. My thermos was constantly full to the limit, and we'd set up a system in which Jazz supplied us with a fresh, empty one three times a day. It had been tiring at first, and I had been almost unconscious every time I changed back in the beginning. Then I found out that if I just stayed in my ghost form, I could re-energize without having to eat or sleep.

It was weird at first, tapping into that energy, that life that was all around me. Trees. Flowers. Animals. People. They all radiated some form of power, power that I could feel, see even when I really tried. Like some kind of aura. It seemed to dissipate into the air, and it seemed a waste not to use it, so I did. Although I tried to stay away from humans as much as possible, it seemed wrong somehow, like feeding off them was some form of cannibalism. But I was starting to wonder what they would taste like.

The door of the ops center opened, and somebody stepped out, somebody with heavy combat boots, judging by the rather heavy clonking sound her footsteps made on the metal roof. She came into view from around the corner, frowned, and then sat down next to me, shivering a bit. I grinned, because I knew I gave her that shiver.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi."

We sat there for a while, waiting for the sun to rise and bring a new day, this time without any ghost fights, hopefully. It might actually be a bit boring, I thought absentmindedly, there was nothing wrong with a good fight every now and then.

"So," Sam said, "We're done, right? They've all gone now, we've caught them all."

"Yup."

I didn't feel like talking, and she seemed to sense it, because she remained silent for a while. I started forming small ecto balls, letting them hover in the air in front of me, feeling their sizzling power that caused a pricking feeling in my fingers. Then I used my ice power to freeze them and they clattered on the roof, like green hail.

"Pretty," Sam said, but now I could hear worry in her voice.

"What?" I asked her, "What's wrong, Sam?"

She just looked at me, as if she didn't know what to say. I felt her worry now, it was hard to ignore, the way she directed it at me. Closing my eyes for a moment, I touched it, felt it, took energy from it. Just a little bit, I thought, just to replenish what I used to make the pretty green hail.

"What are you doing?"

My eyes shot open and I looked at her guiltily. Hadn't I sworn not to use humans as a power source?

"N-nothing," I stuttered, looking away from her.

"Why don't you change back to Danny Fenton?" she asked.

I frowned. Yes, why didn't I? All the ghost were gone, there was no need to be Phantom any longer, and yet, I didn't want to. I felt great, powerful, capable of anything, and this was only from using small power sources like flowers and trees. Imagine, I thought, what I could do by using a human power source...

"Danny?"

Her voice cut off that line of thought.

"I... don't want to," I admitted.

"Why not?"

I looked away from her at the huge glowing orange ball that was rising above the horizon. It's rays were still weak, yet I could feel them, their warmth touching my cold skin, and I didn't like it. Suddenly I _was_ worried. Never before had I wanted to _hide_ from the sun like this, had I wanted to look for a cold, dark spot to stay until the sun set, and the darkness of the night took over again.

I couldn't remember what it was like. I couldn't remember being warm, being hungry, sleeping until noon, taking a warm shower, or just sitting in the sun with my eyes closed, listening to my own heartbeat.

"Why not, Danny?"

Her voice was no more than a whisper now, and I saw the pain in her eyes. Did she think I would desert her? Did she think I was no longer...human? _Was_ I still human? Only one way to find out...

I reached inside of me, searching for that warm spot in the back of my mind that represented my human form, my true form, even if I had almost forgotten about that. I felt only coldness at first, and something that had been so easy before, suddenly became hard. I couldn't do it, because I didn't want to do it. Before, I had always yearned to be breathing again, to be warm again, to be normal. That yearning was gone. I liked the way I was now, a cold, ectoplasmic entity, hovering above the roof of the ops center, capable of almost anything. Fearsome.

I touched her again, not physically, but mentally, feeling the potential there. Could I let that go, could I go back to my life, pretend to be human, when I knew I wasn't?

Then I felt it. I was still there, that tiny bit of me that actually wanted all of this, that wanted to go to school, hang out with friends and family, however weird. I grabbed it, let it engulf me, and the two white rings appeared around my waist, splitting, one traveling upwards, the other down, changing my whole body structure to something that was alive, breathing, with real blood in my veins instead of some green goo. The instant the transformation was complete, I could feel my heartbeat again, a soft thunk-thunk in my ears that I usually didn't pay any attention to.

With a soft thunk I landed on the roof, warm again, smiling at Sam. I couldn't believe I'd forgotten what it was like, that feeling unlike any other, of life swooping over me. The feeling of sweet air filling my lungs, taking that first, deep breath again.


	25. 17: Blood

A/N: Hah! Back to business. Happy Halloween!

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

17. Blood

They had left early, after making sure Jack was safely confined to the basement, distracted by a new invention and a plate of ghost shaped cookies. Maddie had promised to keep an eye on him, and to hide the more dangerous weapons, in case he happened to wander upstairs, or ran out of cookies – not an unlikely prospect.

It was already getting dark, the first batch of small children had already hit the streets, walking alone with a trailing parent, or in small groups, their costumes invariably similar themed: ghosts. Small ghosts wearing just a white sheet with two holes for eyes in them, all black body suits with a fluorescent skeleton on it, tiny vampires with pointy teeth, grinning at everybody who would look.

Sam smiled at the happy group, making them cringe a little and she frowned when Tucker and Danny started snickering.

"What?" she snapped, turning her attention to them, instead of scaring the children, who were happy to get away from her.

"Nothing," Danny grinned.

His grin looked positively evil on his face, accentuated with Sam's black eyeliner and a fake nose piercing. He was slightly tingling from the chains wrapped around his waist, and his all-black outfit and heavy boots just screamed 'goth'. Tucker was clad likewise, with the addition of a huge fluorescent skull on his t-shirt, making him stand out in the dark.

"You're scaring them," Tucker pointed out, "And you're not even dressed up..."

A slight beeping sound distracted them from what could have been a heated argument about scaring small children, and Tucker pulled out his PDA from one of his many pockets. Sam crossed her arms and started tapping her foot, while Danny tried to hide his amusement.

"We start at the school," Tucker said, suddenly all business, "Then we circle the park, through Maple street, sweep the mall area real quick and then head back here and still be in time for the party."

"Sounds good to me," Danny said, padding the thermos that was strapped onto his belt, somewhere between the chains.

They walked in silence, the hunt was on, they were on full alert. Mostly, their attention was focused on Danny's mouth though, because he was the most sensitive ghost detector they had. Sam was carrying the Fenton Ghost Finder, which usually only confirmed what they already knew: there was a ghost nearby.

Tucker was carrying the spare thermos and the Fenton Lipstick. He regretted having bought the shirt with the bright skull on it. It had been a spur of the moment thing, acquired at the last possible moment when Sam had ordered them to go goth for the evening, just to piss Paulina off on her Halloween party, for which they had received a grudging invitation. The thing made him stand out in the dark, and he didn't want to make himself a target for the ghosts they undoubtedly would encounter.

Ghosts took a particular interest in Halloween. It was like they were drawn out in the open by it, like the atmosphere was particularly appealing to them. Or maybe they just liked to scare little children. In any case, for the past two years Danny, Sam and Tucker had made it a habit to sweep the town, getting rid of as many obnoxious, bothersome or sometimes even dangerous ghosts as they could. This year was no different.

After a surprisingly uneventful walk they were nearing the school, when finally Danny's ghost sense went off. He grinned happily, dove into an alley and one bright flash later Danny Phantom was in the air, hovering for a moment to get his bearings, and then shooting off in the direction of the school. His friends followed in a slow jog, keeping their eyes on the sky and the buildings around them.

Flashes of green lit up the dark blue sky behind the school, and one loud 'Beware' later Danny landed in front of them, shaking the thermos a little, still grinning.

"Guess what," he said, "He actually volunteered to go in after I told him what they do with all that cardboard that is stacked behind the school."

"Huh?" Tucker said, "What do they do with it?"

"Shred it."

"They make new cardboard out if it, you dork," Sam said.

"Ah yes, but I didn't tell him that."

A muffled cry came from the thermos, and Danny shook it some more.

"Be quiet," he said.

After checking carefully no one was around the school, he let the two white rings appear around his waist, to change back into his now no less scary form of Danny Fenton. Sam smiled in approval, and Tucker smiled at her smile.

"So," he said as they moved away from the school to follow their predetermined route, "why do we have to dress all in black and you get to wear color?"

He pointed at her purple leggings and the black and green striped skirt she wore. Sam blinked her eyes for a moment when Danny took off again after some lurking ghost, and quickly scanned the area with her Ghost Finder to make sure there were no other ghosts nearby to ambush them.

"Colors have meaning, Tucker. And I didn't pick your clothes, you did. You just _assumed _goths only wear black."

"Oh."

A loud crash signified the start of a more vicious fight, and they rushed to the corner Danny had disappeared around. Tucker grabbed the thermos and handed it to Sam's more capable hands, while taking out the Lipstick. They were just in time to see Danny crash into the roof of an expensive looking car, leaving a rather large dent.

"Ow," he said, sounding more annoyed than hurt, although his friends saw some green ectoplasm leak from his right shoulder.

The ghost in question was hovering above him, managing to look smug through his white sheet. Sam pointed the thermos and sucked him in.

Danny peeled himself from the car, looked at it with some regret and then turned to her.

"Hey," he said, "I wasn't done with the banter."

"Then why didn't you say something," Sam said, "Other than 'Ow'."

"Couldn't think of anything. He was wearing a sheet for Christ's sake. How lame can you get?"

"Lame enough to blast you into that car," Tucker pointed out.

"True."

Danny was hovering in front of them, just about to change back again, when his ghost sense alerted him to yet another spectral presence, and with a 'let's go, follow me' he took off again. Sam and Tucker looked at each other, shrugged and trailed after their friend.

"OK," Tucker said after a moment, "So what does black stand for then?"

"Death, of course," Sam answered, her eyes again skittering from place to place, trying to determine the direction of the newest ghost attack, "And night. We're all creatures of the night you know."

With that she raised her hands above her head and tried to look ghoulish. Then she laughed and spoiled the effect.

"Wow, spooky," came a voice out of nowhere, and both Sam and Tucker jumped.

Danny shimmered into view and Sam tried to hit him with her thermos, but he had expected that and went intangible. She opted to glare at him instead.

"Don't scare us," she said and then, more worried, "You're still bleeding."

Danny twisted his head in an impossible angle, making Tucker wince, and examined his shoulder.

"Change back," Sam said, "It'll heal."

"Yes ma'am," Danny said, bringing his hand to his head in a mock salute, and instantly changing back to something that couldn't float, landing neatly on his feet.

He rolled his shoulders in an exaggerated way and popped a few kinks in his spine while he was at it, knowing Tucker hated it when he did that. Then he fell into pace with his friends again as they strolled down the deserted street and into the next.

"Alright," Tucker continued his earlier conversation with Sam as if nothing had happened, "What about purple then?"

Danny frowned in surprise. "What do you mean what about purple," he said.

Sam shrugged. "He wants to know about the symbolism of colors. Black stands for Death. Purple is for the supernatural, mysticism."

"Hey, that's cool," Danny said, "What other colors have meaning? What about green?"

Sam smiled. "Green stands for monsters, like goblins, zombies. Aliens."

Danny laughed, seemingly enjoying himself despite, or maybe because of, the ghost attacks. He leaned closer to her, bringing his face in front of hers, and let his eyes flash green.

"Monsters, huh," he said.

Sam's breath caught in her throat for a moment, and Danny seemed to realize it too, because his face suddenly changed from a goofy grin into something else. And then a small puff of condensed air left his mouth and he pulled back. Without a word he transformed again, keeping his eyes locked onto hers the whole time. Then, in a blur, he was gone.

"Oh, now that was touching," Tucker grinned, knowing that that would irk Sam.

Then he ducked when she made a move as to whack him, but not really trying. Absentmindedly, she pulled out the Ghost Finder again and consulted it's tiny display to find the direction of the ghost. Or to find Danny, whichever was closer. The wiggly lines seemed to indicate straight ahead, so they followed in that direction.

"Any more significant colors we should know about?" Tucker asked.

"Orange," Sam said, looking at the orange glow coming from a building at the end of the street. She started running.

"Orange?" Tucker puffed, trying to keep up with her, "What does that stand for?"

"Autumn," she yelled at him, "The turning leaves."

She skittered to a stop in front of the building, looking up.

"And fire."

A scream tore through the night as flames erupted out of the top floor of the three story building, followed by a bright orange blur speeding away, closely followed by Danny, whose fists were glowing green.

"Call the fire department!" Sam yelled at Tucker and left in a hurry, running in the direction the two fighting ghosts had gone.

Tucker pulled out his phone, while at the same time pressing all the bells repeatedly, alerting the inhabitants of the pending disaster. Windows started to open, people were looking out in alarm and Tucker started shouting at them to get out of the building. In the distance he could already hear the fire trucks approaching, so he quickly left the scene in search of his friends.

It wasn't hard to find them, he just had to follow the direction of the scorch marks on the buildings and the burning car wrecks. They seemed to have gone quite a distance however, so it took him a while to actually reach them, Danny seated on the sidewalk, leaning his head forward between his knees, still in ghost form, Sam standing next to him, looking worried. The thermos was standing on the ground and Tucker was about to grab it when Sam caught him.

"Don't," she said, "It's hot."

Danny looked up and now Tucker saw the burn marks on his face, hands and arms. He looked exhausted.

"Are you alright?" Tucker asked him.

"I will be," Danny answered, "In a minute. Lemme catch my breath."

For the third time that evening the two rings appeared around his waist, leaving a very weary Danny Fenton, still sitting on the sidewalk. The burn marks had disappeared, only a slight redness on his jaw gave an indication of his previous injuries. Tucker looked at the thermos again.

"What was that?" he asked, pointing at it.

"Dunno. Never seen this one before. It was just one big flame, setting everything on fire. Shoots some sort of fire bolts, I couldn't dodge them all. We'll have to add this one to our files," Danny answered.

Hi climbed to his feet, took a deep breath and said, "OK guys, let's get going. Ghosts don't catch themselves."

All was quiet for a while and they encountered several groups of children, most of them probably on their way home, their bags now full of candy. They paid no attention to the three friends, however menacing they looked, totally focused on the contents of their bags, trying to eat most of it before they reached home.

"Any more colors?" Danny asked Sam, to break the silence.

"White," Sam said immediately.

"You never wear white," Tucker said pointedly.

Sam smiled and shook her head.

"White stands for ghosts. And the full moon." She pointed at Tucker. "Mummies."

"Hey, that's unfair," he said, "How was I to know that guy was an evil..."

"Gotta go!" Danny yelled and transformed spectacularly, taking a running leap into the air. In a flash, he was gone.

Tucker groaned, knowing they had to run again to keep up. Sam was already ahead of him, chasing in the direction of what seemed to be a bright flash of green lightening coming from a dark alley. He rounded the corner and bumped straight into Sam, standing frozen on the spot.

"Red..." she said.

"What?" Tucker asked, confused that she would continue their conversation now, "Red? What does that stand for?"

She didn't say anything for a moment, making a strange hiccuping sound as she extended her hand to touch the wall. Tucker stepped around her and stared into the alley, which was only marginally lit from the street light on the road, casting dark shadows among the many trashcans and the metal stairs leading up the buildings.

"Blood," she whispered.

Tucker looked down and his breath caught in his throat. Large patches of green mixed with red – a lot of red – on the ground, strangely glistening in the lamp light, leading away from them into the alley, all the way to a black lump laying on the ground, unmoving.

* * *

_I happened upon the descriptions for the colors on Wikipedia. If I got something wrong there, they're to blame :)_


	26. 98: Puzzle

A/N: Hi. I thought I'd do something a little friendlier this time. Can't do dark stories all the time. Well, I can. Compensating, compensating...

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

98. Puzzle

They were sitting at the large table in the basement of Sam's house, Danny hanging back in his chair, balancing it on it's hind legs, and Sam hunched forward, intently staring at the puzzle in front of her, holding a dark piece in her hand. The edge of the puzzle was already done, as was most of the red dress of the girl in the picture, wearing a medallion with a pentagram on it. A few pieces of the cauldron in the background, cooking something green, were laying approximately where they should end up, but none of the pieces were attached to anything yet.

"So, um," Danny said, obviously bored out of his mind, "While you're doing this, do you mind if I put on a movie or something?"

"Yes, I do."

She didn't look up from her work, but put down the piece she had in her hand and picked up another one. The problem was, the rest of the puzzle consisted of pieces that were mostly black, semi-black or dark gray. Danny glanced at the box, standing upright against a Fenton Thermos, so Sam could see the intended end result. The girl in the red dress was standing in front of a castle, the night sky yellowish gray, a pale moon shining through the tree behind her. An almost impossible task, a thousand pieces and most of them black.

"Um," Danny tried again, "Shall I get some popcorn?"

"No."

He sighed, let himself fall forward and bumped against the table, making the puzzle shift a little.

"Watch what you're doing," Sam muttered, annoyed.

Danny stared at the pieces laying next to the already finished part of the puzzle. It seemed Sam was determined to do this, and they weren't going anywhere as long as it wasn't finished. He picked up a piece and put it in it's place, a small piece of the castle. This time, Sam did look up to stare at him. He shrugged.

He was about to ask her how long she was going to continue this, when a weak blue mist escaped his mouth, signaling either a weak ghost nearby, or a strong ghost further away.

"I, ehm, I have to go," Danny said.

Sam waved her hand, and picked up yet another piece. Quickly, Danny grabbed the piece she had just put down, placed it neatly in the corner of the puzzle, and transformed before Sam could whack him. He wasn't sure why she would want to do that, since he was only helping her, but he could tell from the way she tensed that that was what she had in mind.

Intangible, he shot through the ceiling, the first and second floor, passing through Sam's room, and finally through the roof. Hovering, he looked around, trying to determine just where the ghost was that dared to come this close to him. It had to be either a powerful ghost, confident enough to think he could take him on, or...

"BEWARE!"

Or a really stupid one, who just didn't think but kept showing up wherever, bellowing his annoying fondness for boxes to anyone who would, or wouldn't, listen. Danny groaned, felt behind his back for the thermos and realized he had left it with Sam, standing on the table, serving as a hold up for the box.

"Great," he muttered, and then, louder, "Hey, Boxy!"

The burly blue ghost stopped examining the damaged boxes standing in the alley, and looked up in fright.

"You!" he bellowed, "You shall not catch me in your cylindrical holding device, for I am the Box Ghost, Master Of All Things Cardboard And Square!"

"Duh," Danny said, folding his arms and going intangible when the Box Ghost heaved up the boxes and threw them at him. Then the box obsessed ghost evaded a ghost ray sent from Danny's hand, only to be caught by surprise when Danny tackled him. They both went through the wall, though the floor, and then, after turning tangible again, through the table that contained the puzzle.

A loud crash signified the end of the table, and a loud shriek signified the end of the puzzle.

"Oh oh," Danny muttered, "Now she's mad."

He pushed the remains of the table from him, frantically looking around for the thermos. The Box Ghost was holding the box that had contained the thousand pieces of the puzzle, and examined it.

"Beware!", he said, "For I shall defeat you with this, um, Gothic Puzzle Box of Doom."

"Put. That. Down."

Sam's growl actually made the Box Ghost, and Danny, flinch. The blue ghost blinked at her in surprise. Sam stepped closer to him, and yanked the box out of the stunned ghost's hands.

"You ruined my puzzle," she hissed.

"Puzzle?" the box ghost asked, ignoring Danny, who was frantically waving at him and shaking his head, "Why would you want to cut up a nice picture, and then put it together again?"

Sam straightened, her eyes blazing, her fists clenched, and Danny thought she looked fearsome in her anger. He backed away a little, as did the Box Ghost.

"It. Relaxes. Me," She yelled, throwing the box at the Box Ghost, who didn't have the sense to duck.

Sam turned to Danny and threw the thermos at him, which he barely caught.

"Out!" she shrieked.

"Let's get out of here," The Box Ghost said fearfully.

Danny agreed, nervously glancing at his fuming friend.

"Yeah, let's."

* * *

_I'm with the Box Ghost on this one..._

_The puzzle I'm describing is for real, see "http:// www. posterspoint. com/ artistas/f/ victoriafrances4094 " (remove the spaces, and put an underscore between 'frances' and '4094', for some reason the text editor keeps removing that). I think these are beautiful._


	27. 18: Rainbow

A/N: Fluffy little nothing. Next one is not so nice.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

18. Rainbow

She was sitting on a bench in the park, hunched forward with her elbows on her knees, watching the little children play in the playground. The sunlight glittered on the ring on her finger, a simple thin band, twisting three colors of gold, red, white and yellow. She avoided looking at it.

Sitting here, out in the sun, the argument she'd had with Danny seemed futile. He was supposed to pick her up, they'd have gone out for lunch, but he'd been late. Again.

"I'm always late, Sam," he'd said, "You know that."

She knew. That hadn't been what had made her so angry. But it was safer, easier to be angry at him for being late, than to express her fear and anxiety every time he didn't show up at the time he'd said he'd be there, always with the reservation that, if a ghost showed up, he'd be late.

And he was always late. And she was certain that one day, unexpectedly, he wouldn't just be late. One day, he wouldn't show up at all, or ever again. One day, he would be dead. And today, she had yelled out her frustration and fear at him, disguised as anger.

A sudden cold breeze alerted her to his presence, and she shivered, but didn't look up. A slight movement next to her, then a cold hand on her arm, invisible, tracing his fingers to her hand and grabbing it.

"Sam, please," he said, "Talk to me."

A slight, prickling feeling went through her, the familiar transformation energy, and the cold hand turned warm. This time, she did look up, right into his worried blue eyes, and she quickly looked away, lest she lose herself into his gaze and forgave him again. She didn't want to forgive him. She wanted... she didn't know what she wanted.

"I'm scared," she said, finally, "I'm scared that one day, you won't turn up at all, and I'll know you're dead."

He was silent at that, shifting his gaze to watch the children playing, his fingers subconsciously twirling the engagement ring on her finger.

"We've come this far," he said, "I'm still alive. I've extended my life expectancy by ten years now. At the time, we didn't think I'd make fifteen, remember?"

She remembered. But back then, they had been young, and everything had seemed fixable somehow. They knew it was dangerous what they were doing. They really hadn't thought Danny would survive all those ghost attacks, the numerous injuries he'd received, the countless times he'd faced death, and yet, he had always come out on top, he had always lucked out. They'd celebrated his fifteenth birthday as if it was their last day on earth.

And the years flew by, and they graduated, went to college, and still he lived. But ever since he'd asked her to marry him, she'd had the feeling that they were tempting fate somehow, it was too good to be true, their luck couldn't last.

"Look," he said, and to her surprise his voice sounded hoarse, "I know it seems like we're tempting fate. But we can't stop living because of this. I can't turn away from you because of what _might_ happen. I can't turn away from life, I need something to hold on to, some form of normalcy, or I might as well go ahead and kill myself completely, get it over with."

They sat close together, the sun warming their skin, the sounds of laughter ringing through the park, mothers calling their children, children screaming at other children, people calling their dogs. Nobody paid any attention to the couple on the bench, a man and a woman, both seemingly lost in thought.

Then, an odd thing happened. Over the small lake next to the playground, something appeared, something white, something that looked like snow, coming out of nowhere. Snow in July, however, didn't stay frozen for long, and the snowflakes soon turned into tiny droplets, raining down in the lake.

"Look," Danny said.

The sunbeams were shining through the droplets, which fragmented them into their various colors, showing as a small rainbow.

"Maybe I'm dead tomorrow," Danny said, "But I'm alive today. Let's go celebrate."

The rainbow dissipated as the droplets all fell down, and Danny wrapped his arm around Sam's shoulders as they got up from the bench to walk away.

"It's a bit late for lunch," Danny said, "How about dinner?"

Sam punched him.

"Don't be late," she said, smiling.


	28. 57: Sacrifice

A/N: OK, alright, I've sat on this for a week. Dunno what's wrong with it. Maybe you can tell me. Time frame for this one shot: not long after the episode where Danny goes back in time to mess with his parent's experiments in college, dunno what it's called. Ah yes, this thing makes a seemingly odd jump in the middle, which hopefully becomes clear in the end.

Anybody who's waiting for the next chapter of 'The House', I'm sorry, I'm still messing around with it. There's something wrong with that too. Maybe there's something wrong with me, GAH!

Inspired by 'Two Roads', by Chaos Dragon. I would have said 'based on', but it turned out differently than I expected (maybe _that's_ what's wrong with it :).

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

57. Sacrifice

Coughing, his eyes tearing, Danny ran through the school, trying to see through the thick smoke that was all around him. He heard others, screaming, crying, and twice he fell over somebody who just laid on the floor, unmoving, overcome by the smoke and the lack of oxygen. He ignored them, there was nothing he could do for them, if he tried to get them out they would probably both perish. His panicked brain had only one thought: out, out, out!

Gasping for air, he suddenly found himself on the ground, his face pressed against the floor, right next to the bulky body of what seemed to be a football player. He couldn't see any further than a foot, and he had no idea where he was or in what direction he should flee. The only thing he knew was that if he stayed where he was, he'd die.

"I don't wanna die," he muttered to himself, and started coughing again.

He pushed himself up on his knees and started crawling, keeping his head as close to the ground as possible, as it seemed the smoke wasn't as thick there. Another body was laying in his way and he had to go around it.

"It," he thought, "Think of it as 'it'. Not a person. It."

He felt like he had been crawling forever when finally he felt a breeze of fresh air hit his face, coming from his right. He almost started crying when he realized that of all the directions he could have chosen, he chose the right one. He got lucky, for once.

Quickly, he started moving into the direction the breeze of fresh air came from, only to encounter yet another body of a student. He was about to go around again, when he realized that this particular student was wearing combat boots.

No it. Sam.

"Sam!" he choked, reaching out to grab a hold of her, feeling his way across her body until he reached her head.

He started shaking her, trying to wake her up, but she was too far gone. Desperation took hold of him. He wanted out of the school, but he didn't want to leave Sam behind. Coughing, panting from exertion, he grabbed her arms and started pulling, sliding her across the floor with jerky movements, almost passing out in the process.

All thought vanished as he moved, his vision reduced to zero as he had to close his eyes from the stinging smoke, only guided by that cool breeze that made the smoke twirl.

Sirens. Heavy footsteps. Hands that grabbed him, grabbed Sam, his would be, could be, girlfriend. Fresh air, blinking lights. Nothing.

* * *

Danny hovered above the school, scanning the area, trying to locate the ghost that had set off his ghost sense. He was tense, not only because he had already missed more than fifteen minutes of his English class, but also because he had a feeling that this was the ghost who'd started all those fires lately. At first it had seemed like freak accidents, houses, office buildings, even the library suddenly bursting into flames, fires so intense the fire department invariable came far to late to save the building. 

Danny had done his share of saving people, flying them to safety, actually gaining him some sympathy from the public. Even his parents were starting to wonder if maybe he wasn't all that bad. So far, nobody had gotten hurt.

And then, yesterday, he had seen it happen. A huge flame, bursting out of the top floor of an old warehouse, and then a ghost fleeing the scene, a ghost that looked like it consisted solely of fire. He'd pursued the ghost immediately, but it had sent several fire balls at him, which he hadn't been able to avoid, and he had crashed to the ground with some severe burn wounds, wounds that thankfully disappeared mostly when he changed back to Fenton.

A sizzling sound was his only warning. On instinct, he ducked, having the huge fire ball go over his head and crashing into a tree, which started burning instantly. Danny swirled, and blasted the flaming ghost with a huge ecto blast, sending it flying backwards. Then he quickly produced a shield to fend of yet another fire ball. It bounced into the pond.

Desperately, Danny rushed the ghost, knowing he had to catch it quickly, because those fire balls were causing a lot of damage. Below him, he caught sight of Sam, holding a thermos, worriedly looking up at him. She was skipping math for him, but he knew that she, unlike he, could afford it. Tucker would have been there too, but he was at home, sick.

Again a fire bolt. It hit the school, sending a few bricks flying, but no fire started from it. Again he blasted the ghost, and it crashed down on the ground, right in front of Sam, who was struggling to get the cap off the old, battered thermos. It seemed stuck somehow, and Danny saw to his horror how the ghost turned his attention to her. Certain that he needed to distract it, he fired up a huge ecto ball and hurled it at the hovering ghost.

Everything happened in slow motion after that, and the events kept repeating themselves in this head from thereon, forever burned in his mind, driving him insane until he could no longer bear it.

The ghost hovered, and started to turn around as if to check where Danny was. Sam managed to get the cap off and moved forward, making use of the ghost's temporary distraction to try and suck him in. Danny fired the ecto ball.

The ghost saw it coming and darted out of the way. The ball hit Sam square in the chest, just as she pressed the button on the thermos. The thermos flew out of her hands, it's blue beam neatly capturing the ghost and falling to the ground. Sam fell to the ground too, a huge, smoking hole in her body where her chest had been, her purple eyes forever wide in surprise and pain.

* * *

Clockwork looked at the young ghost hovering in front of him, his once powerful green eyes dimmed to a dull gray, his white hair hanging in his face, the skin-tight body suit no longer that, but hanging loosely around him. 

"You are aware of the consequences," Clockwork said severely, changing from an old man to a child, and then back to a young man again.

Danny didn't answer, his mouth twitching, his mind obviously in turmoil, trying to work his way around the choice presented to him, the possibility to either save Sam's life, or save a lot of other people, unknown to him, and have Sam stay dead. By his hands.

He looked at his hands, feeling the power he held there. Power to save. Power to kill.

Clockwork gestured at the two identical mirrors, one showing a graveyard, a tombstone with a single name on it, and two grieving parents standing there, holding each other while putting pink roses on the grave. The other showed a church, filled with people, mostly teachers, parents and students. One of which was Sam Manson. A notice outside read 'Caspar High School Memorial Service'.

Danny stared at the two scenes in front of him with hollow eyes. The choice seemed simple. A trade off. Sacrifice one to save many. But he couldn't live with it.

"You said it would get better in time," he said hoarsely, as if he hadn't used his voice in quite some time, which the ghost of time knew for a fact he hadn't.

"It doesn't. It'll never get better. It's been two months. Two months since I killed her, since I _murdered_ her, and I never realized...," his voice caught in his throat, and he stopped for a moment, looking at the mirror showing Sam, sitting in the church, looking back to smile at him.

He floated closer and brought his hand up to almost touch her, and then let it drop again. The pain was almost physical, the pain of losing her, the knowledge that because of his ghost powers, she was gone. If only...

"I never realized," he continued, his voice stronger now, "That I would give anything, everything, any sacrifice, to keep her safe. This cannot happen. I won't allow it."

The only thing he had to do was go back to that point when he stepped into the portal, and then simply not do it. If he never became Danny Phantom, Sam would live. If he never became Danny Phantom, a lot of people would die. Sam would never forgive him. But she would never know.

He turned to look at the shape shifting ghost, his mouth set in a thin line, a determined expression on his face. The ancient ghost gestured at the mirrors.

"You are willing to sacrifice all these people to save her?" he asked, "Remember, there is no going back, like the last time. This choice is forever."

A flash of anger appeared in Danny's eyes, and for a moment he looked fierce again, his eyes a blazing, angry green.

"You already knew what I was going to choose," he growled, "Do it."

* * *

He was sitting in the back of the church, beside his sister and parents, watching the minister as he read the name of the students and teachers who had died in the fire at the school. His mother grabbed his hand and squeezed it, looking at him with tearful eyes, thankful that her son had been saved, but sad because of the many who had died. 

Danny didn't feel anything though. He didn't feel happy or sad, but strangely cold, lost. The only emotion he could feel, if he let himself, was an inexplicable guilt. Somehow, he felt responsible, and although he knew he had had nothing to do with the fire, and in fact was seen as somewhat of a hero because he had saved Sam, he still felt as if he could have prevented this all from happening.

It was this fact that made him push everybody away from him, his parents, his sister, and even Sam and Tucker, who had been home sick that fateful day. Sam was seated a couple of rows in front of him, and he looked longingly at the back of her head. Somehow, she must have felt his gaze on her, because she turned around and smiled sadly at him, a smile that faded away when he purposely looked away again.

He shivered, and, pushing his mother's hand away, wrapped his hands around his body, trying to keep that cold feeling away, careful not to touch the bandages on his shoulders.

Two months had passed, his wounds were starting to heal, wounds that he hadn't known he had when he was trying to get out of the school. He had been hit in the shoulder by a fire ball from the flaming ghost when he was trying to flee the classroom. For some reason, that memory stuck with him.

He shouldn't have fled. He should have done something, but he didn't know what. It was not like he could fight a ghost.

* * *

_Would he really make this choice (if given the option by Clockwork)? Remember, this is the guy who ripped out his ghost half because he couldn't deal with the loss of his family and friends... of course, he didn't know the consequences at the time._

_What is it with me and fire lately? Fire terrifies me. I always check the stove twice to make sure the gas it turned off, I never burn candles, I have multiple smoke detectors in my house. So why does this fire stuff keep popping up in my stories? Yay for Freud. I must be a subconscious arsonist_ :D


	29. 11: Memory

11/20/2007 Edited. Took out some glitches and a nasty hiccup in the middle. It flows better now.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

11. Memory

Jasmine Fenton Sullivan clutched her cane tightly, while pushing open the old, withered gate of the small graveyard on the edge of town. With a small wave of her hand she dismissed her granddaughter, who stared after her worriedly before driving off into the twilight, the taillights of her car lighting the slight mist hanging over the place, giving it a strangely reddish glow.

The gate opened with a creak, as if it wasn't used much, which it wasn't. This was an old graveyard, no one had been buried here in more than two decades, and after all that time the visitors were few to non existent. Jazz knew of plans to demolish the place, to clear the graves, build houses there, but she still had a lot of influence in the city council, and up until now had always been able to prevent it from being disturbed.

After stepping through the gate, she awkwardly turned around, still leaning on her cane, and pushed it shut behind her, holding the flowers in her arm, close to her body. Alice, her granddaughter, had offered to come with her, to help her, but Jazz knew the girl really didn't want to. The graveyard was spooky, old, and, in the twilight, downright scary. Which made it the perfect time to visit.

Slowly, she made her way on the narrow path that twisted and turned up the hill, passing the old gravestones dating back more than a century, going higher and higher up to the more recent graves. The mist seemed to thicken into a fog as the darkness set in, and she could hardly see the outline of the leafless tree on top of the hill. Her feet bristled against the fallen leaves as she stubbornly dragged herself further, until she reached her destination.

With a sigh, she let herself sink on the old bench, silently cursing her old joints, knowing that sitting here on this cold, damp bench wouldn't do them any good. She inspected her flowers to see if she had crushed any of them by holding on to them so tightly, but they seemed to be alright. Quietly, she bend forward and placed one flower on each of the two graves in front of her.

"Hello mom, dad," she said softly, "It's been a while. I don't remember when was the last time I was here, my memory isn't that good anymore."

She chuckled. "Just like you, mom. I remember you always complaining about your memory in the end... So maybe the end is nearing for me too."

She shivered in the cold, pulling her cloak tightly around her, staring at the gray stones, trying to find meaning to it all, but failing. The stones told her that life was always temporary, everything came to an end, and even heroes died. She'd survived them all, and only now did she see the advantage of dying young. No heartbreak, no goodbyes, no pain. That was for those who stayed behind.

"Funny," she said, not in the least put off by the fact that she was talking out loud all by herself, "I remember what happened sixty years ago so much better than what I did yesterday, or what I had for breakfast this morning. Not that there was any importance to that of course."

She was silent for a while, letting the darkness settle over the graveyard, letting the fog grow even thicker. She bend over again, and brushed some of the fallen leaves from the old stone in a futile attempt to make it seem like the grave was taken care off. She long ago had lost the ability and drive to keep them clean, however, so it was more a gesture of affection than anything else.

Slowly, she raised herself upright and stared down one more time.

"Bye mom," she said, "Bye dad. Your Jazzerinces has grown old herself now. Maybe today was the last time..."

She said that every time she was here, and yet, she always found the strength to go again, to see them again, to reminisce about the old days, her youth, when the world was bright and the future seemed promising. And the world had been bright, and her future, now her past, had been gratifying. And now she had time to look back, and lose herself in the past.

She turned and walked back to the path leading up the hill, briefly stopping to put a flower on the third, older grave that was beside those of her parents, but she didn't talk to him. She knew he wasn't there.

Twice, she had to rest on her trek through the graveyard to the other side, where the huge family tombs were. They were so far apart that it sometimes hurt, but Jazz knew that it didn't really bother them. It bothered her though. They should have been buried next to each other.

A slight breeze touched her arms, her neck, and she shivered for a moment, and then shrugged off the feeling that she was being touched by icy fingers, that she was being watched from the fog. She could no longer see the dark form of the tree, only the big tombs that stood there, burying the rich people of Amity Park.

"Rich or poor," Jazz thought, "But all just as dead."

Finally she stopped at the dark, ominous structure that bore the name 'Manson'. Just that. A smaller panel next to what would have been the entrance if it hadn't been overgrown with weeds and bushes, depicted who were buried there, but she didn't go and look at it. She knew exactly what it said.

Instead, she looked at the old, moldy wooden bench beside the tomb, hesitating for a moment before deciding that she had been out here in the cold for so long, a few more minutes on a wet, cold bench wouldn't hurt her much more. She placed the remaining flowers in the small vase that was hanging on the wall of the structure, trying to arrange them somewhat before grunting to herself that it wouldn't matter to anybody anyway.

She sat down and closed her eyes for a moment. This was the place, this was the time, the weather was right. This was why she came here. She opened her eyes again and stared at the swirling fog and the dark form of the tomb, straining her eyes in the dim light. There was nothing there, however, and a wave of disappointment washed over her. Maybe she expected too much. Maybe they had moved on.

The lights on the streets were on, their orange light permeating through the fog, giving everything an otherworldly glow. The moss on the old tombstones behind her seemed black in this light, the tombs before her, rising up in the darkness, scary in their opulence and ugliness. Sam would have hated this.

And then she saw them. Two dark figures, sitting together on top of the Manson tomb, one with her chin on her pulled up knees, held together with her arms, the other leaning backwards, looking up as if stargazing. Soft voices rang through the fog, and Jazz strained her ears to hear what they were saying, but it was gibberish, distorted and echoing.

Then laughter, and the figure leaning backwards stood up and held out his hand to the girl, and Jazz imagined a smile on his face. The girl let herself be pulled up by him and he bowed mockingly, inviting her to dance.

Jazz wrapped her arms around her, sniffing in the cold air, feeling the tears leak from her eyes. She watched them dance, two dark figures, almost as insubstantial as the fog, turning and turning as if they were on solid ground. Suddenly they stopped, and the boy leaned over to whisper something in the girl's ear. Then he looked up over her shoulder, and seemed to stare straight at Jazz. She gulped.

She couldn't see his eyes, they were only black holes in his pale face, and yet she knew he saw her, sitting there in this gray place where all color had disappeared. For some reason, he scared her. He had never looked at her, he had never seemed to be able to see her, or even be aware of her before. It had always been just her brother and Sam, forever teenagers, forever young, sitting on top of the Manson tomb.

Then he nodded at her once and looked at Sam again, and they started twirling, faster and faster until nothing remained but swirling fog.

Shakily, Jazz dragged herself to her feet, her knuckles white on her cane from the tightness of her grip. He had looked at her, had acknowledged her, and she didn't want to contemplate the meaning of that. Despite her age, she still felt very much alive.

"See you next time," she whispered bravely at the fog, and slowly started making her way back to the gate where her granddaughter would be waiting by now, probably worrying, not so much about her, but about the scolding she would get from her mother if she found out she had let her grandmother go to the cemetery again, by herself.

She didn't look back. If she had, she would have seen two glowing green eyes staring after her, his form but a dark blur in the fog, his white hair practically invisible. But he, too, was but a memory.


	30. 37: Eyes

A/N: Three for the price of one... all connected.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

37. Eyes

It had been a stupid mistake, and he should have seen it coming. But he had gotten over confident, arrogant, and blasé, casually smiling as he had taken off, telling his friends that he'd be back in a minute, it was only the Box Ghost.

Only the Box Ghost. But still, a ghost, and as his father always, always, told him, ghosts were dangerous. And he knew that too, for he himself was a ghost, and dangerous. Dangerous to himself, mostly, he thought bitterly, as he was laying on his back in the grass, trying to keep still, hearing his friends shout out to him as they were running up the hill in the park, their voices frantic.

He was human again, and his hands were clutching the grass tightly, to prevent himself from rubbing his eyes feverishly, something that he was sure would be a very bad idea. But it took all his willpower to do that. He felt the tears stream down his face, his eyes trying to rid themselves from the foreign objects in them, but failing. He had them shut tightly, unable to open them, and even the sparse light that came through his eyelids caused an intense pain.

"Danny! Are you alright?"

He almost, almost, started laughing at Sam's panicky standard question. Instead, he groaned, shaking his head madly.

"Eyes," he wheezed, and then, "Glass. There was glass in the box."

The idiot ghost had stolen boxes from a department store in the mall, boxes that contained, according to the ghost's loudly bellowed threat, 'Unique Crystal Wine Glasses and Decanters'. As per usual, he had then proceeded to hurl the boxes at Danny, who should have just gone intangible.

Instead, he had blasted them. At close range.

He felt Sam's hands on his face and he whimpered, trying to tell her to stay away from his eyes. In the background, he heard Tucker talking into his cell phone, calling an ambulance, his tone of voice all business, leaving the comforting to Sam.

"Can you open your eyes?" she asked him, and he heard the fear in her voice.

He shook his head, clenching his teeth. She sat with him, stroking his arm, letting him squeeze her hand, talking softly to him to distract him. He heard the sirens in the distance, heard the pounding footsteps of the paramedics on the ground, and then they were there, taking over, placing something over his eyes, and everything went dark.


	31. 4: Dark

A/N: Sequel to 'Eyes'.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

4. Dark

A week. It had been a week. He was sitting in his room, on his bed, listening to the latest Dumpty Humpty CD Sam had gotten him a few days ago. He already knew all the lyrics, and was singing softly with the band, uncaring that he was slightly out of tune. There was nobody there to offend with his less than perfect singing voice anyway, and he really didn't have anything else to do.

The doctors had let him go home, on his own insistence that he could administer the eye drops himself, that his mother and sister could change the bandages, and that he would check back with them every other day, to view the progress.

Not that there was much progress. He was in the dark. His eyes had shut down, the cornea severely damaged by the tiny particles of glass that had hit his eyes from the exploding box of 'Unique Crystal Wine Glasses and Decanters'. The explosion hadn't so much as shattered the crystal, but had instead turned it into a fine dust cloud, which was actually even more damaging than shards would have been. Like sand in your eyes, but then permanently.

The doctors had shook their heads, according to Sam, who had given him a whispered eye witness report, talking like she was covering a football game, commenting on everything she saw, making him laugh through his tears. Then they had proceeded the painful procedure of rinsing his eyes, prying them open because he couldn't do it himself, and pouring water into them, hoping to catch most of the glass dust in them. An operation had followed, in which they had poured a liquid in his eyes, turning them a fluorescent purple, and they had removed the rest of it.

Time, they had said, would do the rest. His eyesight would probably be completely restored, once the scratches on the cornea were healed. Until then, he needed to pour antibiotics into his eyes every hour, and the bandages needed to stay on.

He had been moving through his room, through his house, feeling his way around, amazed at the amount of clutter that was there. Magazines, on the floor next to the couch. Boxes in the hallway, close to the stairs. Chairs, suddenly standing in a different place than they were before. It drove him crazy.

In the end, he kept to his room most of the time, where he knew where everything was, and everything was moved only by himself. If he fell down here, it was his own fault. Absentmindedly, he rubbed his shins, full of bruises from hitting the edge of the side table in the living room. He misjudged the size of that thing every time.

The CD ended, and he turned off his stereo, letting the room become quiet. He just sat there for a while, listening to the sounds of the house, a slight clanking coming from downstairs, probably the lab, the hissing of the pipes going through his room, all the way up to the ops center, voices of people walking on the street beneath his window. He even listened to his own breathing for a while, knowing that he could turn off that particular need by going ghost.

He had tried it, hoping that his ghostly green eyes still had their sight, but he was disappointed in that. As a ghost, he was just as blind.

Sighing, he swung his feet from the bed and got up, feeling his way to the other side of the room, until he reached the window. The sun was shining through it, and he could feel it's warm rays on his skin. He leaned against the window, again listening to the sounds of the street outside, a dark and scary world now, a world he was unable to enter. He'd have to wait here, in his room, bored silly, until his eyes were whole again.

One of the steps of the stairway creaked, and he tilted his head to listen. Someone was coming up the stairs, someone that was trying to be quiet. He smiled. He could hear her, identify her by the way her combat boots made a soft clicking sound on the wooden floor, stopping in front of his door. The door handle moved slowly, and the door opened.

"I can hear you, Sam," he said.

She sighed, and then laughed. He loved her laugh. He had never noticed it before, but her voice was rich and low, always with that sarcastic, amused undertone. He realized that he had never really listened to her.

"I guess I can't sneak up on you anymore," she said, and he heard the smirk in her voice.

He heard her cross the room and then she joined him at the window, presumably looking outside.

"Aren't you going crazy in here?" she asked, touching his arm lightly.

He shrugged.

"Yes. No. I don't have much choice," he said.

"Wouldn't you like to go outside?"

Yes, he would like to go outside. He would love to walk around town again, to fly, to go see a movie, to fly again, to go to school and be bullied by Dash, and then to fly some more. But now, outside was out of the question. It was dark there, an alien world, a world he didn't know anymore and although he didn't want to admit it, it scared him.

"I'd love to, Sam," he said, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice, "But you know, I can't right now. I can't even move around my own house without injuring myself nowadays, let alone go out there."

She was silent for a while, standing close to him and he started noticing other things about her. Her smell, for instance. She smelled nice, as if she had just taken a shower and washed her hair with shampoo smelling of roses. It was weird. He'd never associated Sam with roses before.

"Do you trust me?" she asked, finally.

Trust her... he thought about that. Trust wasn't even beginning to describe the feeling he felt now. He trusted her. He'd place his life into her hands anytime. He'd let her hold his heart in her hands, he'd tell her any secret and he knew she would keep it. His trust in her was absolute, and it surprised him. He didn't even trust Tucker that far.

She took his silence as a no, and started turning away from him, but he grabbed her arm before she could move out of reach and he'd have to stumble after her.

"With my life," he said, silently cursing himself for the squeak in his voice.

He heard the smile in her voice when she said, "Well, then let's go!"

"Go where?"

"To the Nasty Burger, you dork," she said, "Where else?"

Where else indeed.


	32. 3: Light

A/N: Sequel to 'Dark'

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

3. Light

"Stop fussing," Danny said angrily, pushing his sister away from him.

He was sitting on the examination table in the doctor's office in the hospital, waiting for said doctor and Sam, who had promised to be there. He had been in this office every other day for the past three weeks, and he knew his way around now. Once he stepped through the door, he didn't need his sister's or his parents guidance, he knew the exact distance to the chairs, the desk and the examination table.

Jazz mumbled something incomprehensible and he heard her move away from him. His mother walked up to him and placed her hand on his shoulder, squeezing it lightly, but keeping quiet, sensing that he didn't want to talk. At least, not until Sam was there.

His head shot up when he heard her footsteps in the hallway, and he was already smiling when she entered the room, not caring in the least that he was confirming his sister's and his mother's suspicion that he had a crush on her. He was even willing to admit it to himself these days, finding that if he couldn't look at pretty girls like Paulina, he actually preferred Sam's company over anybody else's, talking with her for days on end, listening to her voice when she read out the English assignments to him, or tried to explain math without the use of a visual aid.

Without the looks, Paulina was just a shallow witch. Not that he told Sam that.

"Hi," he said to her, happily.

She greeted him by pecking him on the cheek and he felt himself blush. Before anybody could make a cute comment, however, the doctor entered, and everybody suddenly went all businesslike.

"Daniel," he said in a friendly doctor tone, making him wince, "I'm sure you're anxious to get the bandages off, so let's just proceed, shall we?"

Danny nodded in agreement, and carefully laid down on his back, hearing the doctor close the curtains.

"He'll have to get used to the light again," the man explained.

Someone grabbed his hand and squeezed it encouragingly. The doctor moved closer and started touching his face with his cold hands, carefully prying the tape off that held the bandages in place. Then they were lifted from his eyes, and he squeezed them shut tightly, wincing at the brightness of the light that protruded his eyelids.

"Open your eyes, son, let's see those baby blues again," the doctor said happily.

Taking a deep breath, Danny tried to relax his eye muscles, and opened one eye a little bit. The light in the room was dazzling, and he was surprised that the doctor seemed to have opened the curtains again. Everything was unfocused though, so he tried his other eye.

It didn't hurt as much as he had dreaded. He could make out shapes, people, the door, the walls, all hazy. Then something moved in front of him, going up and down and he looked at it, following it with his eyes.

"Good," the doctor said, satisfaction in his voice, "You can see my hand."

He moved away from Danny, letting his family and Sam come closer, smiling at him, relief on their faces. He looked back at them, staring at them one by one, until he settled his gaze on the girl with the amethyst eyes, smiling an uncharacteristically wide smile at him.

"Now there," he said, "Is a sight for sore eyes."


	33. 5: Seeking solace

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

5. Seeking solace

Sam hugged her coat tightly around her, keeping it closed with one hand, while wiping the snow out of her hair with the other. Her feet rustled through the two inch thick layer of white fluffiness that was on the ground, the sound of it muffled by the falling flakes. The orange lamp light gave everything a lonely glow, as if she was walking through a world that didn't exist.

At one AM, it was very quiet out on the streets, and she shivered a little when a few snowflakes managed to get inside her coat, melting on the bare skin of her neck. She should have worn a scarf. Stopping for a moment, she took the time to properly button up, to keep the cold out as much as possible.

Combat boots making clear, distinctive imprints in the fresh snow, she made her way down the familiar streets without thinking, driven by a need, giving in to impulse. The snow made it look as if she wasn't really there, as if she was only dreaming. She just wished that in her dream, she wasn't so cold.

The giant neon sign came into view when she rounded the last corner, shining brightly through the snow like a beacon, lighting the street much better than the streetlights did. Other than that sign, the house was dark.

Quickly, she passed the front entrance and entered the alley next to the house, which was mostly free of snow. She stamped her feet a few times to get rid of the snow that had attached itself to her boots, and then grabbed the trashcan and pushed it under his window, praying that it was open like it usually was, no matter how cold it got outside.

His parents, however, worried about the low temperature of the room, and they had been known to enter in the middle of the night to close it, unaware of the fact that half the time it wasn't Danny that was laying in the bed, but a bunch of pillows and a black wig. Sam had frequently commented on this half hearted attempt at subterfuge, but he had shrugged, saying his parents were oblivious, and saw only what they wanted to see. That last part came out bitterly.

Tentatively, she climbed on top of the trashcan, wobbling a little, and stretched out, reaching for the top of the wall that was at the end of the alley. Her fingers hooked around the edge, and she pulled herself up, a feat neither Danny nor Tucker was able to do. Of course, Danny didn't need to, he could just float up if he wanted to.

Sitting on the wall, she peered at his window, trying to see if it was open. It seemed slightly ajar, and she sighed in relief. She really didn't want to walk all the way back to her own house.

Balancing awkwardly, she managed to get herself standing up, and she reached out to the narrow edge under the window. The rest was relatively easy, and moments later she tumbled into his room with a soft thud.

She laid on the floor quietly for a moment, listening to his breathing, trying to determine if she had woken him up. At least he was there, and not out on some ghost fight. Satisfied that he was still asleep, she got up and closed the window, making sure that it was slightly ajar as it had been. Then she quickly took off her coat and her boots, revealing black and purple pyjamas.

Silently, she stepped closer to the bed, looking at the boy in it, laying on his right side, curled into a ball, his blankets covering only his legs. He was wearing a white t-shirt, leaving his arms bare, but she knew he wasn't cold, even though she was shivering in the cold room.

When she was a little girl, she sometimes would have night terrors, scary dreams that somehow managed to penetrate into the waking world, dreams that she didn't seem to be able to wake up from. Her solution back then had always been to find a place of warmth and safety, of loving arms that would hold her and tell her it was alright to be afraid, but they would protect her from anything. Her parents had often found their little girl squeezed in between them, smiling happily to herself.

Of course, that had been a long time ago. When she got older, the warm and safe feeling of being with her parents vanished somehow, leaving her colder and more alone. But also, the night terrors ceased, and there had no longer been any reason to want to creep into her parents bed for comfort.

Tonight... tonight she had woken from a scary dream, a dream she didn't remember the details of, but had left her rattled, shaken to the core, to scared to move in her own room. The longing for a safe place was there again, but her parents were out of the question. So instead, she had grabbed her coat and had hurried out of the house, in search of the one place she would find safety, if not warmth.

Definitely not warmth, she thought, as she pulled the covers back a little and climbed into Danny's bed, snuggling against him. She would have some explaining to do in the morning, but for now she was safe. She listened to his breathing for a while, and her eyes fluttered closed as she drifted off.

A slow smile crept onto Danny's face.


	34. 23: Cat

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

23. Cat

Sunbeams filtered through the filthy windows, lighting tiny dust particles floating around, swirling every now and then when someone took a deep breath. The warmth of the sun's rays made everybody drowsy, and eyelids started to close as the voice of Mr Falluca droned on, explaining something not quite within his students' grasp.

Sitting in the back, out of sight, Danny was struggling. His eyelids seemed to fall down on their own, his head kept nodding forward, his eyes had a hard time focusing on anything but what was happening outside. And nothing happened outside.

His mind started to wander again, to the broken off session of Doomed he and Tucker had been playing the night before, a slight worry about his English assignment, his plans for the weekend. No plans, really. Just ghost hunting until he dropped.

"...in the box. In this state, the cat is both dead and alive, and this is what we call a 'superposition' of states, and only when we open the box..."

"What!"

Twenty-one heads turned simultaneously to the back of the class, where the black haired boy had jumped up from his desk, and was staring at his teacher.

"Mr Fenton, what seems to be the problem?" Mr Falluca asked, annoyed by the interruption.

"Uh, um, what you said," Danny stuttered, sitting down again, red faced, "I didn't catch that. I-I'm sorry."

"Schrodinger's cat," Mr Falluca said acidly, "I was trying to explain the theoretical experiment of Erwin Schrodinger. The cat in the box..."

Apparently, the whole class had woken up from Danny's outburst. Paulina raised her hand.

"Mr Falluca, how can an experiment be theoretical?"

Mr Falluca rolled his eyes. "I explained that yesterday, Ms Sanchez. It's when you describe an experiment without actually doing it. Now where was I... The cat. The box contains a device that contains a vial with poison, and a trigger. We don't know when the trigger will go off, so we don't know if the cat is alive or dead, and that's what we call..."

"That's cruel!" Dash exclaimed, "That poor cat..."

"Not for real, you moron," Danny said to him, "In theory."

Dash turned around to him and made a cutting motion along his neck with his finger. Danny flinched, but didn't back down.

"Mr Falluca," he said, "What you said, about the cat being both dead and alive, how is that possible?"

Mr Falluca opened his mouth to answer, surprised that the boy actually took an interest in quantum mechanics, but Paulina beat him to it.

"It's not, you idiot, It's just that you don't know."

"Then how can we know?" Kwan asked.

Paulina smiled brightly. "You open the box!"

"But there could be poison gas in there," Dash said worriedly, "We're all gonna die!"

Danny let his head drop on his desk.

"Actually," Mr Falluca began, but he was interrupted by the bell. The entire class, fully awake by now, took that as a sign to be as noisy as possible, making it impossible for Mr Falluca to read out assignments. Resigned, Danny gathered his books and followed the others out of the classroom, out of the school and into the weekend.

* * *

Jack Fenton was sitting on the old, but comfortable couch in the living room, doing his needlepoint. He was carefully examining a picture of himself in his orange suit, blasting a ghost with an ecto beam, while another part of his brain was thinking about something completely different.

He had been noticing strange things about the ghost boy lately, stranger than the fact that he seemed to be fighting his own kind constantly, always claiming to be a hero. He obviously had an obsession there, Jack could see that, but what had surprised him was that the ghost actually seemed to care.

The week before, there had been a fire, and Phantom had saved three people from the burning building, but hadn't been able to save a fourth one, a father of three children, trapped in the fire, unable to get out. Phantom had tried to get to him, but the building had collapsed before he could even get close. And Phantom had cried.

Thinking about it, Jack recalled that the ghost actually showed a whole range of emotions, from happiness, to anger, and even fear. In fact, if Jack didn't know any better, he would say the ghost was human. And it was this impossibility that had driven him to his needlepoint. To think.

The front door opened, and his son entered, looking tired and a little disheveled. Jack looked up from his work and smiled brightly at him.

"Hello son, want some fudge?"

Danny shook his head.

"Good!" Jack said, "All the more for me then. How was school? Teachers still trying to teach you... stuff?"

"Yeah dad," Danny answered, strangely hovering in the living room, instead of rushing upstairs to his room. Jack looked at him questionably.

"Um, dad?" Danny asked, "Do you know anything about a cat in a box? That is both dead and alive?"

Jack's eyes lit up. "Old man Schrodinger's cat!" he exclaimed, "Sure do, son. Learned all about it in college. Or your mother taught me, I never could figure that out. They're teaching that stuff in high school now?"

Danny shook his head.

"I don't know," he said, "I, um, missed the beginning of the speech, but I think Mr Falluca was just trying to get us interested in it, and we had a discussion in class, so he couldn't finish his explanation, and I was wondering..."

"Say no more, son," Jack said, putting down his needlepoint, "I'll explain it to you. See, the thing is, the cat in the box is not real. It isn't really both alive and dead, but because we don't know which state it's in, we say it's both alive and dead. It's called... well, I forgot. If you open the box, you know, but by opening the box, you influence the outcome. The outcome is only there because you open that box. But it's only on an atomic level. In real life..."

Jack frowned, as a thought struck him, and he stared at his son, still standing near him, holding his backpack.

"What if you never open that box?" Danny asked.

Jack didn't hear him.

"Dad?"

"The ghost boy," his father said, "Is both dead and alive."

He didn't notice his son back away from him, but instead, tried to hold on to his train of thoughts, eyebrows furrowing in concentration.

"He's alive. That's why we can never catch him, that's why he shows emotion."

Danny had reached the stairs.

"He's also a ghost, because he does ghostly things. But he's not a full ghost, he's a... half ghost!"

Danny grabbed hold of the banister, his knuckles going white.

"How could that happen... he didn't die... not really... maybe an accident with a huge amount of ectoplasm... where would you get that... Danny, how did you get that portal to work?"

Jack looked around for his son, but he had disappeared.

* * *

Danny closed the door of his room tightly and leaned against it. 

"Stupid cat," he muttered.

* * *

_Dunno if I explained it right... I'm not saying here that Danny is in a quantum state. It's just Jack's mind making a leap here.  
_


	35. 1: Introduction

A/N: Hi! I have something to say, but I'll keep it short. In a few days, whenever I think I have announced it enough, I'll be changing my pen name. Because really, uula is stupid. I was trying out all sorts of cool names at the time, to find out that they were already taken, so in my frustration I typed four random characters, resulting in... right. I wasn't gonna publish at the time, just review and set alerts, and now I'm tired of it.

Not gonna change it by much though. It's still dumb, but better than it was, and it will resemble the old one so you'll know it's still the same old silly obsessive me.

I said I'd keep it short, and I'm not. I'm sorry.

About this one shot: it's a try out. I've sort of started a series of one shots with the title... well, that comes at the end of this story. And when I say series, I mean that I have about half of the first one done, and have no clue about any sequels. Other than that, I've started two other stories, and I have ideas for two more. Not a clue as to where they're going yet though. Ah, so many stories, so little time...

Why are you still reading this? Go read the story!

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

1. Introduction

They were sitting on top of the ops center like they used to, quietly watching the sun set in the warm summer breeze. The town seemed peaceful from up there, not infested with crooks, criminals or ghosts. A police siren in the distance told them otherwise.

"So," Danny said after a while, sitting cross legged on the roof, leaning forward to grab his glass of wine, "You're back to stay."

Sam nodded, sipping her glass, while eying the half empty bottle that was standing in the middle. She was laying on her side, leaning on her right elbow in a position that was sure to become uncomfortable soon.

"Hey man," Tucker, who was sitting with his back against the structure, said, "Can't let you have all the fun by yourself, you know. Only ghost hunting in the holidays just doesn't cut it."

He swallowed the remainder of the wine in his glass in one large gulp, and reached for the bottle.

"You?" he asked Danny, holding the bottle close to Danny's glass, but he shook his head.

"Your loss," Tucker said, serving himself, and then Sam, who held her glass close to his.

She nodded her head in the direction of Danny's glass.

"You've hardly touched yours," she said, "We're celebrating. Come on, Danny, I nicked this from my parents' wine cellar especially for this occasion."

"Alcohol and ghost fighting don't go together," Danny said tensely, remembering the one time he had drunk too much, "I don't think you'd want me starting to obliterate random things just for the heck of it."

Tucker grinned. "Do I hear experience here?"

Danny looked away. Sure, he was happy his friends were back, after having been away for years, going to New York (Sam) and UCLA (Tucker). They couldn't have been further apart, with him stuck in Amity Park Community College. But he felt a pang of resentment at them, for having managed to get away from the stress and the danger, even though their parents practically forced them to go. Hell, he himself had told them to go, he'd take care of business, he'd be perfectly alright on his own.

And he had been, sort of. After all, he was still alive. But the price had been high.

Tucker took his silence as a yes, and grinned some more, but Sam frowned, always having been more sensitive to Danny's moods than Tucker was.

"So," she said, "How's the job going? At the amusement park?"

Danny shrugged. "OK, I guess. I still have it."

Tucker blinked. "I thought you were working in that car parts store near Caspar High?"

"That was last month. Got fired. Again."

"Oh." Tucker averted his eyes, finally catching on that Danny was in a foul mood.

They drank in silence for a while, Tucker and Sam refilling their glasses, Danny only taking small sips from his. The sky turned orange, the buildings black, and Venus made it's appearance in the quickly darkening sky.

"You should start your own business," Sam said, "That way you don't have a boss to fire you when you run off to fight a ghost again."

"Yeah, right," Danny answered irritably, "Because you know, I have so many talents. I'm extremely good at star gazing, sleeping late, running off in the middle of something, and oh yes, I have a mean punch. People start business because they're good at something, doing something other people want. I'm not good at anything."

"Yes you are," Tucker said, his words now slightly slurring, "You're good at ghost hunting."

"Yes!" Sam got excited, "That's it! You should start your own ghost hunting agency!"

"I already do that for free..."

"Well, you shouldn't. Let people pay for it if they want their house rid of some ghost that's haunting it. There must be a lot of those around here. We only see the violent ones."

Danny looked at her. Her cheek were flushed, her eyes were sparkling as she was gesturing to emphasize her point. She spilled some wine over her hand and frowned slightly, before licking it off.

"And we'll be in it too," Tucker said, "I work in shifts at the computer store, I can totally hunt ghosts in my free time and help you out. We'll be... the Ghost Getters!"

Sam moaned. "That is so lame. That's the name Jazz thought up when Danny was away on that fishing trip."

She took another sip from her glass, now obviously slightly drunk, and started laughing.

"How about... Phantom Fighters!"

Danny shook his head, amused. "Too obvious. I'm supposed to keep my identity a secret, Sam. How about just Fenton Works II?"

"Fenton works too?"

Sam and Tucker's laughter was infectious, and a small smile tugged at Danny's lips. Sam got up, swaying a little, and raised her finger.

"I know," she said, and then frowned, "No, I forgot."

She sat down again with a thud. Tucker was in hysterics.

"S-s-s...," he spluttered, taking several attempt to get it out, "S-Spook Spotters!"

Danny stared at Sam. She was giggling. Sam never giggled. It was not goth-like. She furrowed her brows in a comical concentration.

"Apparition Apprehenders," she got out, and Tucker started clapping her accomplishing this feat without stuttering.

Danny shook his head, now grinning widely. Trust his friends to make him feel better. An idea struck him, and he raised his glass.

"Specter Detectors," he said.

His friends quieted down and looked at him. Then Sam raised her glass too, and nodded. Tucker solemnly joined in, and they toasted.

"Specter Detectors it is," Tucker said, "You'll fly me home, right, Danny?"

* * *

_I don't presume to know anything about UCLA or any colleges in New York. It's unimportant to the story, and I picked them randomly because they sounded familiar._


	36. 50: Breaking the Rules

A/N: OK, I decided to just go ahead and do it, change my name. Still took me about ten tries before I got one that didn't exist yet. I'm kinda figuring you'll be able to recognize me by the strange title of this one shot collection...:D

Just in case you didn't know: I used to be 'uula'.

About the previous one: obviously (but I should have mentioned it anyway), they are all over 21 in there. Besides that, getting drunk is uncool. Don't do it

And yes, Specter Detectors is the only name I didn't think up myself (other than Ghost Getters). If the great Butch Hartman came up with it, it can't be wrong (I was tempted to go with 'Spook Spotters' though, LOL). I obviously don't own it.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom

* * *

50. Breaking the Rules

Walker loved his prison. It was clean and orderly, and it had Rules. Every ghost in there wore the same striped uniform, they were in their cells every night at ten o'clock sharp, although Walker was the one to determine when it was ten o'clock, or even night. They stood in line in the cafeteria without so much as glancing at each other, the Box Ghost next to Skulker, quietly awaiting their turn for the gray, shapeless goo Klemper was serving.

Everything would have been perfect but for the little half ghost sitting in the corner of the especially made human/ghost proof cell, curled into a ball, his arms over his head, looking away from the white glow that came of the white prison ward. The boy offended his sense of order. There should be no such thing as a half ghost. In fact, he had made a rule about it, or better yet, two rules.

"Danny Phantom, alias Danny Fenton," Walker boomed, and the boy seemed to be trying to crawl into the wall, "You have broken rules 3412: No ghost can be a human, and 3413: No human can be a ghost. You have no right to an attorney. I will be your judge, jury, and executioner."

The boy actually looked up, his green eyes dull, his white hair dirty and stained with green from the wounds on his face, hazemat suit shredded and torn, showing bruised pale skin underneath. He started laughing.

Walker didn't like it. Prisoners were not supposed to laugh at him. He was sure he had a rule about it somewhere. He signaled at his deputies, and they rushed forward, dragged the boy up and slammed him against the wall, holding him in place with their night sticks. The boy started coughing.

"Walker," he croaked, "Have you ever considered going on stage? You're hilarious."

Walker floated closer and the boy had the decency to cringe.

"You have a big mouth," Walker said to him, "It's only been a day. We'll break you. And after we've broken you, I'll execute you personally. As a special favor to you."

"Gee, thanks," the boy managed to get out, before Walker hit him on the head.

The half ghost's head swung sidewards, and his knees buckled. He would have fallen down if he had not been held up by the two deputies, who looked at Walker questionably. He nodded.

"Work on him some more," he said.

He turned around and left the cell, closing the door behind him. For a moment, he just hovered there, listening to the screaming that came out of it, and then he left to oversee his more orderly part of the prison. The world was a complex place, only to be understood with rules. Rules were the pillar of his existence, and he was working hard to mold the world into his rules. And if something couldn't be molded into his rules, he removed it.

_Breaking_ the rules was not an option.


	37. 12: Insanity

12. Insanity

He sored up into the sky, through the clouds, all the way up, until he could see only blue sky and a fluffy whiteness below. The giddy feeling had passed, the strange elation coming from the adrenaline rush he had felt when they had managed to catch the ghost rats together, working as a team, synchronizing their movements, tossing the thermos at each other whenever they needed it.

She had been awesome, using the miniaturized wrist ecto guns, jumping and back flipping, blasting the small, but unexpectedly dangerous furry green animals. By themselves, they were pretty harmless. In a pack...

He'd been almost overrun twice, and she had saved him both times, yelling at him to duck while she swung the Fenton anti creep stick. And they'd caught them all, just the two of them, and when the last ones were sucked into the thermos, they had just stood there, in the middle of the empty park, panting, grinning at each other. And it had been then that it had struck him. He loved her.

That in itself wasn't so bad. He'd known he had a crush on her for a long time now, ever since they'd started freshman year, almost three years ago. But she was his friend, and he'd never acted on it, and denial had become a habit. But at that moment, when he had gazed into her purple eyes, noticing the excited smile on her face, he'd realized it had become something more. And in the adrenaline rush, he'd said it.

She had stared at him, eyes going wide, jaw dropping, and he had known he'd made a mistake. Without waiting for her reaction, he'd taken off, going high up in the sky, knowing he'd ruined everything. He must have been insane.


	38. 33: Expectations

A/N: Wow, this is short... Um, can I promote a new fic here? 'Cuz, it's up. It's the follow up fic from 'Introduction', to be found in this collection, called 'Specter Detectors'.

* * *

33. Expectations

Edward Lancer sat in what he called his office, the now empty classroom on the second floor of Caspar High School, his desk lit by the old desk lamp he had inherited from his predecessor. Tomorrow, school would start and summer would officially be over. It would be hard to tame them, the new freshman students, thinking a lot of themselves because they were now in high school.

He sighed and looked at the lists containing the names of the students he would see for the first time in the morning. Most of them he didn't know, but some names were familiar, as he had had their older siblings in his class. Others, like Baxter, Manson, Sanchez, were completely new.

He scanned the list until his gaze fell on a very familiar name. Fenton, Daniel. His eyes lit up. This would be interesting. If his sister was anything to go by, the boy would probably excel at everything he did. Jasmine Fenton had been his favorite student, and he was sorry he didn't teach junior English.

Spirits lifted a little, he gathered his papers and shoved them in a desk drawer. For at least one of his students, he had great expectations. This was going to be an interesting year after all.


	39. 52: Deep in Thought

(Sequel to 'Seeking Solace')

52. Deep In Thought

He was sitting on the top of the highest building in Amity Park, a huge office building containing mostly law firms. Why those firms always huddled together in one building eluded him. He didn't particularly care about who or what was in the building, but it was something to think about.

It was very early in the morning, and it was still dark outside, but Amity Park glittered in the orange light of the streetlights. The snow that had fallen earlier that night was still undisturbed, and turned even the ugliest building or street into something from a Dickens tale. It was strangely quiet outside, and he marveled at the peace the town seemed to radiate. It wasn't something he usually took notice off, because whenever he was outside at this hour he was usually on his way to fight a ghost, fighting a ghost, or on his way back from fighting a ghost. And on all these occasions, he usually had something else on his mind.

This high up the wind was really cold, and he closed his eyes, letting it's coldness numb his already cold skin, making his white hair blow into his face. He imagined the wind blowing through his head, clearing it, wiping out all thought until he just sat there, being. One thought remained.

Sounds began to emerge from the town below him, the heavy overcast sky becoming lighter in the east, the first disturbance of the snow on the street, the smoke from a large truck turning it black. The town came to life, like a living being, groaning and blinking in the pale morning light. He let the world pass him by. Finally, with one last look at the now gray snow on the street, he let himself drift away, picking up speed, having found a new sense of purpose.

He needed to do something.


	40. 31: Flowers

(Sequel to 'Deep in Thought')

31. Flowers

She awoke slowly, as usual, tugging the warm blankets close to her, happily dazing in her warm bed. It was strangely light in her room and she kept her eyes closed tightly, trying to stay in that wonderful haze just a little while longer, postponing the inevitable. She moved a little, and something rolled against her face, ticking her nose. She sneezed.

Suddenly wide awake, she sat up in her bed and looked around in the familiar, but totally unexpected, room. Danny's room. Danny's bed. Too shocked to move for a moment, she just sat there, staring at the cluttered desk, crumbled clothes in the corner, and then her coat and her boots lying on the ground near the window. And memory came flushing back to her.

She turned a bright scarlet, and quickly looked beside her in the bed, but he was gone. Where his head had been, was now a single rose. She realized that that was what had woken her.

Slowly, she swung her feet out of the bed and placed them on the cold floor, picked up the rose, and then stood and walked to the door. Another rose was attached to the doorknob.

Curiosity now had her, and she untied the small rope with which the flower was tied and placed it with the other one in her hand, careful to avoid the thorns. Then she opened the door a little and peaked down the hallway. She didn't want to get caught by either Mr or Mrs Fenton, or even Jazz, coming out of Danny's room in her pajamas. It would give them all the wrong impressions.

The hallway was empty though, and the house was strangely quiet. Usually, there would be some TV on in the morning, Mr Fenton would be making noise in the lab, or Mrs Fenton would be singing while either backing cookies or backing ectoplasm samples. Now, a single rose was laying in the middle of the hallway, pointing towards the stairs.

Strangely excited, she stepped out of Danny's room and picked up the rose, then headed for the stairs. Sure enough, there were two roses there, one on top of the stairs, and one at the bottom. She descended, picking them both up. The third step creaked it's familiar creak, sounding strangely loud in the silent house. She had no clue about what was going on, other than that Danny was playing some kind of game.

There was another rose pointing at the kitchen, and she quietly picked it up and added it to the now sizable bundle in her arms. Quietly, she peaked around the door frame, into the kitchen.

The table was set for two, a single rose was standing in a vase next to one of the plates, two glasses of fresh orange juice were standing on the counter next to the toaster, which had two slices of bread in it, ready to be toasted. And a lone figure with messy black hair was sitting in the open window wearing nothing but a t-shirt and faded blue jeans, staring outside at the snow mud on the street in front of his house.

"Danny?" she said questionably.

He started and almost fell out of the window, but he caught himself.

"Oh, hey Sam," he said, after recovering himself and closing the window, "Did, um, did you sleep well?"

She nodded, and looked around.

"Where are your parents?" she asked.

Danny grinned and started rubbing the back of his neck, a sure sign he was nervous.

"Heh. Strange thing. Got called away, some ghost showed up, it seems. So, they're across town, really."

"Oh."

They stood quietly for a while, staring at each other, and then suddenly they both started talking.

"You want some toast?"

"You have a vase or something?"

They grinned at each other, suddenly comfortable again. Danny gestured to the chair, and she sat down on it, laying the roses on the table, while he started rummaging through the cupboards, muttering to himself. Suddenly, he seemed to feel her gaze on him, because he turned, letting the vase he just found slip through his hands. It clattered on the floor, in a thousand pieces. Sam arched an eyebrow.

"What's up, Danny? You're acting kind of weird this morning."

And then she quickly shut up, thinking about her own weirdness, showing up in the middle of the night to crawl into his bed. He blushed, and quickly looked down at the shards at his bare feet. Any normal person would have had a problem now, but he conveniently turned his feet intangible and walked to the cupboard that contained the broom. Then he busied himself with meticulously sweeping the kitchen and getting rid of the shards, before getting out another vase to put the roses in. Another question popped up in Sam's mind.

"Where's Jazz?"

Danny put the broom away, took out the toast from the toaster and sat down across from her.

"She, um, needed to go to the library," he said.

"Is it even open now? I mean, it's Saturday..."

Danny glanced at the clock on the wall, which indicated that it was almost ten o'clock.

"It is now," he said.

The silence of the house was getting on her nerves. For some reason, Danny had gotten rid of his family members, so he could be alone in the house with her. A tiny spark in her head started nagging her, telling her how Tucker had always said he liked her, and a strange hope took possession of her. The flowers. The empty house. His obvious nervousness. She decided to be bold.

"What are you up to, Danny?"

His knife clattered through his hand on his plate, and he stared at his uneaten toast for a moment. Then he looked at her empty plate and glass.

"You finished?" he asked, and she almost giggled when his voice cracked.

He looked into her sparkling eyes for a moment and froze, before turning away from her and picking up both her empty and his full plate to put them on the counter.

"Danny," she said, "Answer the question."

He still had his back to her, and she could see the tension in his shoulders. Then he turned around, and to her surprise he looked scared. This, she decided, was going entirely too far. He was Danny Phantom, a hero, afraid of nothing, recklessly putting himself in danger on a daily basis to save others. He couldn't possibly be afraid of her. She got up, took three big steps around the table until she was right in front of him.

"What are you afraid of," she demanded.

He straightened, and then looked down on her, seemingly reaching some kind of decision, because he stopped fidgeting.

"This," he said, and then he kissed her.

* * *

_Ha! Who said I can't do romance! Oh wait, that was me..._


	41. 45: Illusion

A/N: This... is what I'm really doing while I'm watching a merry-go-round. Good thing people can't look inside my head.

* * *

45. Illusion

The winter fair was at it's peak hour, the people milling around the rides and stalls, smiling, laughing, pushing through the crowd. Nobody seemed to mind that it was almost impossible to get anywhere, nobody was in a hurry to get anyplace anyway, they were just enjoying the sounds and the smells of a long-ago forgotten memory of their childhood. In this day and age of computer arcades, amusement parks and TV, the old-fashioned rides of the winter fair seemed tacky. But fun.

There was the old Ferris Wheel, nowhere near as high as the ones one would get at the the great fairs in the larger cities, looking as if it could use a bit of extra paint. But the owner smiled a friendly smile at everybody and patted the children on their heads, their cheek red from excitement and fatigue, it being way past their bedtime.

The loud music from the Dodgem cars didn't drive people away either, and a long line was standing at the side of it, people waiting for their turn to have a go at something that was to be avoided in their everyday lives.

It took some courage, Danny mused, to come to Amity Park with a Ghost House, taking at shot at scaring people who were so used to ghost attacks they didn't even pause to look at it anymore when he was battling Skulker, or Ember, or some other powerful ghost way up in the sky. Ghosts were like the rain, annoying, but just there.

He wrapped his arms around the shoulders of his raven haired girl friend and pulled her close, pointing at the gloomy ride, which had 'Horror' written in large, fluorescent green letters. She smiled at him and nodded, and they both sat down in the little cart and let themselves be pulled through a series of more or less scary looking skeletons, ghosts with glowing red eyes and slimy monsters suddenly popping up beside them. Sam was laughing the entire way.

The bright lights of the fair greeted them when they stepped out of the cart, smiled at the attendant and slowly made their way through the fair again, working their way through the crowd. He bought Sam some cotton candy, and they shared the pink sugar, plucking at it with sticky fingers. Then they stopped to look a the Merry-go-round.

It was a beautiful carousel, with painted on scenes of winter landscapes, dancing people and animals. The mechanically moved horses were shining in the lights, looking as if the owner polished them every day. They sparkled too, and wen Danny looked a bit closer, he saw that they had small mirrors glued on them that reflected the light. It stopped, and the people got off, laughing, picking up their children and helping them down from their horses or carriages.

Sam tugged at Danny's arm, and they climbed on it, each taking a horse. He noticed the horses had names painted on them. Sam was sitting on Neville, he himself was on Johnny. Other people got on as well and then the bell sounded, and they started turning, going round and round, until he could no longer tell where they were.

He looked at Sam's sparkling eyes and reached out to grab her hand, squeezing it to tell her how much he was enjoying her company. The cold air blew his hair back, and he could see her breath steaming from her mouth as she said something to him he couldn't hear.

"I love you too," he yelled at her, and that brought another smile on her face.

They were going fast now, the lights were flickering in his eyes, the faces of the people standing on the ground becoming a blur of white ovals with holes for eyes. The music became louder, the wind was blowing harder, and he grabbed a hold of the pole that went through his horse, keeping it in place, moving it up and down faster and faster. He held on to Sam's hand even tighter and looked at her worriedly, but she was still smiling at him.

Round and round, the fair was gone, only a stream of lights remained and the glittering of the horse he was on, which, he saw now, was missing an ear. Spiky splinters were where it should have been, and Danny wondered why the owner, who took such trouble to maintain his carousel, wouldn't fix this. The paint was pealing off too, and the wood of the horse felt brittle with age.

Turning his head to look at the inside of the carousel, he saw the owner standing there, grinning a toothless grin at him, and his mouth went dry. The other people were gone, he and Sam were the only ones left on it, and the music was going faster and faster, sounding off key. There was no 'outside the merry-go-round' anymore, the darkness and colored lights of the fair had changed into a green swirling.

He felt her bony hand still in his and he turned again to look at her, seeing her pale face and the dark circles under her eyes, no longer smiling at him but grinning, showing black rotting teeth between black lips. He let go of her and clutched his horse tightly, ignoring the splinters that stung his aged hands, watching her as her face turned old and withered away, leaving only a white skull.

Echoes sounded through his head, flashes of light in his eyes, the darkness that entered his vision, then one last look at the smiling owner of the carousel. A cold that chilled him to the bone, a cold that would never go away, a cold that he could never turn off again and turn into something breathing, living. A coldness of the grave.

* * *

_Please don't ask me what's going on here. I haven't a clue. Well, he's dead, obviously._


	42. 6: Break Away

A/N: Had this one for a while. Don't know what to do with it. You tell me. Ah yes, probably a sequel to 'Breaking the Rules'.

Happy new year!

* * *

6. Break Away

The endless green of the ghost zone swirled by them, familiar and unfamiliar patterns giving them direction, Danny's crude map lying on the dashboard of the Specter Speeder. Sam clutched the controls tightly, looking at the different dials, trying to gauge if they could do something that would make the thing go even faster. The Fenton portal was still a half hour away, anything could happen during that time, though they seemed to have left Walker's goons behind them.

The silence in the vehicle was oppressive, and Sam glanced at the battered figure sitting beside her, trying, but failing, to think of something to say. She averted her eyes quickly when she saw him looking at her, knowing her avoidance of him must hurt him. Instead, she tightened her grip on the controls, her knuckles going white. They just had to get out of there.

"Sam."

She started, and jerked her head sideways, looking directly into his blue eyes. This time, she didn't look away, although she almost couldn't stand to look at the bruises, the cuts, the broken teeth, and least of all, the look in his eyes. She had hardly recognized him when they rescued him from Walker's prison, breaking him out of his special made ghost hybrid cell, of which he could not phase out, ghost or human. It had been dark in there, and at first she had thought their informer – the Box Ghost of all ghosts – had been wrong, he wasn't there. Disappointment had washed over her, and she had been about to signal to Tucker to check the other cells, when a soft noise had alerted her.

He had been sitting in the corner, curled into a ball, his arms over his head and his face turned away from her, shrinking away from the beam of her flashlight. She had rushed forward and had touched him, and he had whimpered. It had taken some doing to get him to look at her, let alone get him to come with them. She had spoken to him softly, trying to get through to him, the old Danny, not this battered, frightened wreck, while a shocked Tucker had been standing in the doorway, fidgeting, silently motioning to Sam to hurry up.

They had fought their way out of the prison, dragging Danny with them, setting some other ghosts free in the process to create a general mayhem to keep Walker and his goons busy. And now it seemed like they had shaken them off.

"I'm alright," Danny said.

Sam flinched, and Tucker turned in his seat in the back to stare at him.

"Dude," he said, "Do you have any idea what you look like?"

Danny shrugged and winced.

"Like I got hit by a truck?"

"Close."

"Good. Because that's gonna be the story."

Tucker was shaking his head, and Sam felt a distinct need to gawk at her injured friend. He had gone from a shivering wreck back into the Danny they knew in less than half an hour, slowly relaxing his fists, calming down little by little, putting the whole ordeal of the past three days behind him.

"How can you be so calm!" she burst out, "You at what he did to you!"

Danny blinked at her, seemingly surprised, and for a moment a strange light shone in his eyes.

"I'll obliterate him later."

She looked at him, trying to penetrate his mind, trying to see the real Danny. She realized that what he was showing them wasn't him. It frightened her. What had they rescued?

"Hey Danny," Tucker said, interrupting her thoughts, "Which rule did you break this time?"

Danny started laughing, and then moaning, clutching his chest.

"Ouch. I think I broke a rib," he groaned, "I mean, he broke my rib."

He shook his head. "You're not gonna believe this one. New rule. Halfas are forbidden."

He laughed again, eyes twinkling with mirth. "Guess I have to keep on breaking this rule then."

Tucker laughed too, but Sam didn't. She kept staring at Danny until he stopped laughing and stared back a her, obviously realizing that she saw through his deception. He leaned forward and placed a bloody hand on her arm.

"Don't worry about it," he said, but of course she did.


	43. 14: Smile

(sequel to 'Break Away')

14. Smile

The house was quiet and dark, having that strange, lonely atmosphere that you get at three in the morning when everybody is sleeping. With no sound of traffic coming from the outside, voices from the kitchen or the lab, the sound of the TV that always seemed to be on, the cracking sound of somebody coming down the stairs seemed to accentuate the silence. Danny nervously glanced up the stairs at the door of his sister's room, but it remained closed. He wasn't worried about his parents waking up, his father's loud snoring drowned any other sound and his mother's earplugs would prevent her from hearing anything. Jazz, however, was a light sleeper, even more so now that she was watching over him like a hawk. 

He breathed a little easier when he reached the bottom of the stairs. Only a little though, his ribs still hurt like mad when he tried to breathe deeply. Laughing was painful. Coughing... agony. There was nothing for it though, he'd just have to wait for it to heal. His ribs weren't broken, however they were badly bruised and he had trouble sleeping. He just laid in his bed, trying to find a comfortable position and thinking about... things.

He was fine. He knew he was fine, and yet, they all kept treating him like he was made of porcelain, carefully avoiding the subject of what had happened. He had caught Sam looking at him with those concerned purple eyes of hers, as if she was somehow afraid of him. She shouldn't be, he'd never hurt her.

Walker on the other hand...

A slow smile crept on his face, and although he was unaware of it, it made him look slightly disturbing. Pulling his arm out of the sling, he proceeded to the basement, walking with somewhat more confidence on the concrete steps. Downstairs, he let the two white, sizzling rings appear around his waist, transforming him into the most powerful being on earth. He floated for a moment, examining the power he had, the power he had discovered deep inside of him, the power he needed to do what he was going to do. The power neither his friends nor his sister knew about.

It was almost overwhelming, a deep rumbling, a white light inside of him, almost limitless. He craved it and feared it. When he let it sear through him, nothing could stop him. And nothing was going to stop him now. He pressed the red button of the genetic lock and the doors to the ghost zone slid open, allowing him to see the green swirling entrance. Within the blink of an eye, he was through it.

Once inside, he adjusted his senses somewhat, as he always needed to do when he entered the realm of the dead. It was cold in the zone, not cold in the sense that the temperature was low, but the coldness of death. He felt oddly at ease here now. He remembered how the place had scared him when he had first entered, but no longer. It was familiar to him now, and he almost had a feeling of coming home. A tiny bit of him worried about a time in the future when he would no longer want to leave the place, but he brushed it aside. First things first.

Moving away from the portal, gradually picking up speed, he flew into the direction he needed to go to accomplish his goal. Purple doors passed him by, some random ghost in the distance, quickly taking off when they saw him, as if sensing that crossing him at this point was painful at best, lethal at worst. He chuckled to himself and then groaned. No laughing.

A half hour passed, and then another one. Walker's prison was deep into the zone, which was why Sam and Tucker had had such a hard time getting to him two weeks ago. They literally had to fight their way to him, then fight their way through the prison all the way to the ghost/human proof cell block deep in the prison's dungeons. They'd both sustained burn wounds from ecto blasts, and that had angered Danny even more than that what Walker had done to him. Because really, Walker had done him a favor. He had gotten rid of something that had held Danny back all those years. And that had allowed him access to that immense pool of power that resided inside of him.

At long last, the ugly white building that was Walker's prison came into view. Walker clearly didn't expect him, or he'd have arranged for a welcoming party. Danny was almost disappointed, but shrugged it off. He could always pick a fight with Walker's goons afterwards, if they still wanted to. They might not.

He let himself float in front of the huge main entrance, transformed back into Fenton and walked through the door. Once inside, he immediately turned back into his more comfortable ghostly self. The two goons inside the hallway didn't know what hit them, and Danny lowered his glowing green hands, making sure they were unconscious. Then he quickly proceeded to Walker's office and entered the room without knocking.

The white prison warden was sitting behind his huge desk, looking important with his famous rule book in front of him. He looked up in surprise and then satisfaction.

"Come to give yourself up, punk?" he asked smugly, "You know you can't escape me forever."

"No," Danny said.

A flash of worry shot across Walker's face, but it was gone in an instant. He raised his hands and suddenly a pair of handcuffs appeared.

"Especially made for you," he grinned, "You remember these, don't you?"

Despite his resolve, Danny cringed inwardly. For a moment, he was back in that cell, chained to the wall, unable to stop what they were doing to him. They'd hit him, cut him, starved him until the only thing he could do was sit in the corner of his cell, whimpering. Unable to hold on to his ghost form, he had reverted to his human side, which had made things ten times worse. The punishment he could take as a ghost was enough to almost kill him as a human. His human form was weak.

He let his tongue slide over the caps on his front teeth and gathered his wits. This was no time go reminiscing about the good old days.

Walker approached him, unaware of Danny's swaying mental stability, the handcuffs swinging in his hands and a cruel smile on his face. He obviously thought he could take Danny down easily, as he had before. Danny waited until he was close enough.

Just when Walker slapped the handcuffs on his left wrist, sending a burning sensation through Danny's arm, he reached out with his right hand and grabbed the white ghost's neck. He squeezed, letting a little of the white rage seep into his hand. Walker started choking.

"What... what are you doing, punk, let go of me, I'm..."

He ended in a gurgling sound and Danny kept squeezing, his green eyes burning brightly. The soft white glow that always surrounded him became brighter as he tapped into his rage, that white hot lava that now ran through his ghostly body as if burning through his veins, painful yet pleasant. The pain in his left wrist forgotten, he directed more of it into his right hand, into the shrinking prison warden.

Walker was melting. He no longer made a sound, as Danny had destroyed his vocal chords. His face was distorted, both from fear and from the acid like white glow that now came from within. Danny pushed his hand further down, literally pushing, burning his way through Walker's ghostly body. His eyes now shone like mad and if it hadn't been so painful, he would have laughed.

Walker shouldn't have messed with him.

White blotches were starting to fall off the ghost, dripping to the ground, sizzling, burning their way through the floor. His left arm suddenly came off and floated away from him, the hand still clawing aimlessly as if trying to prevent what was happening. Danny looked at it in fascination. Then he squeezed just a little bit harder again, and the cruel, rule obsessed ghost ceased to be, dissolving into a white, bubbling puddle on the ground.

Danny looked at it. He was still glowing brightly, but the rage was leaving him. Not leaving him, settling back into him. Ready to be accessed whenever he needed it. The arm was still floating around, but he decided to leave it. Slowly, he turned around, to see three of Walker's goons in the doorway, staring at him, their mouths agape.

"Who's next?" Danny asked in a low voice.

They bolted. Danny shrugged and sauntered to the desk, carefully avoiding the white blotches on the ground, slightly smoking, eating their way through floor. He rummaged through the drawers until he found what he was looking for: the keys to the handcuffs that were still attached to his left wrist, sending short, electric shocks through his arm. Unhurriedly he opened the lock and let them slip down on the floor. Then he hesitated. They might come in handy against some other ghost hybrid he knew. Quickly, he picked them up again, ignoring the stinging of the things, and pocketed the keys. Then he left.

He flew through the ghost zone unchallenged and entered the lab through the still open portal. He closed it neatly, changed back to his human form and climbed the stairs to the kitchen. He quickly made himself a sandwich – obliterating ghosts obviously made hungry – to give himself an excuse to be down there and then went back to bed.

* * *

Jazz watched her brother come down the stairs, yawning. He was fully dressed, his hair still a mess as usual and awkwardly carrying his backpack in one hand, the other still being in a sling. She hurried to him and quickly relieved him of it, earning her a grateful grunt. One week in the hospital and one week at home, recuperating from what his friends had said was a car accident. Jazz knew better. And now he was going back to school, although he was excused from gym. 

"So, are you up to it?" Jazz asked in a perky voice.

He looked at her in surprise. "Am I ever?" he asked.

Laughing, she handed him the bowl of cereal she had prepared for him. He sat down at the table, poured the milk over it and started eating, a pensive expression on his face. Jazz glanced at the clock.

"You'd better hurry," she said, "Sam and Tucker should be here any minute."

She had hardly finished her sentence when the doorbell rang.

"I got it," her father yelled from the living room, and moments later Danny's friends entered the kitchen.

"Um," Tucker said, "That green goo that's all over the couch..."

Danny shuddered visibly. "Don't talk about it," he said, "Dad tried to goo the Box Ghost yesterday. Needless to say he missed. But..." He grinned at Jazz. "At least I don't get to clean it up this time, with my arm and all."

Jazz scowled at him. She wondered how much longer he would be able to use his now probably fully healed arm to get out of his chores. Sam laughed, but it sounded strained. Jazz looked at Danny again.

"What?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

She decided to change the subject.

"Any ghost trouble last night?" she asked, and then caught the look on his face. She shivered.

"Nope. No more ghost trouble. Ever."

He smiled.

* * *

_OK, um, I'm kinda busy with something else, so don't expect updates soon. But I couldn't resist this one. I'm feeling evil today :)_


	44. 70: 67 Percent

70. 67 Percent  


"Mom, are you really sure this is a good idea?"

Maddie looked up from the screen she had been staring at intently and smiled absentmindedly at her son, not realizing he had actually asked her a question. She looked back at the graphs and charts on the monitor, the numbers quickly changing as the machine was sending its readings to the computer. A soft moan, however, made her look up again. The scan of his body was almost done, but it shouldn't cause any discomfort.

"Don't worry, sweetie, it may be a little uncomfortable, but we can eradicate that ecto contamination in your blood easily. We've done it before, remember, last year, when your father ate the ectoplasm samples instead of the ham by accident? It's an easy procedure, nothing to worry about."

She looked back at the monitor and frowned.

"It's really high in your case... How did that happen? Have you been sneaking around in the lab without us knowing?"

"I don't know, mom, can we do this some other time, I have to do my English assignment..."

Maddie shook her head and looked at the number now displayed in the bottom right corner of the monitor.

"Five minutes, dear. You can do your homework after."

"But..."

Tuning out her son's protesting, she grabbed the mouse and clicked on the red 'start' button. Beside her, the extraction machine whirred to life. The static electricity made it crackle a bit, and the extraction extensions started to glow. She watched as they were lowered and pressed against her son's body.

"Mom," he whined, jerking at the manacles around his wrists.

"Stop complaining, Danny," Maddie said irritably, "You brought this upon yourself. This is what you get from being in the lab too long. I looked at the computer log, you've been online the entire night. He didn't contradict her, couldn't, because the bags under his eyes were clear evidence of an all-nighter the night before.

She walked around the metal table, careful not to trip over any loose wiring on the floor. She had had to get out the machine in a hurry, when she had discovered why all their ghost equipment was always targeting Danny. It had been standing in the corner, partly disassembled and collecting dust. It had taken her all morning, when her son was in school, to get it working again. Danny looked at her with huge frightened blue eyes.

"You tricked me..." he said.

She felt guilty about that. She hadn't told him what she was going to do, but instead had asked him to join her in the lab to help her with something. That wasn't an uncommon request, he, his sister and his friends often helped out, holding things or pointing things in the right direction for her or her husband. So he hadn't found it strange at all when she had asked him to lay down on the table for a moment to check if it could hold his weight. He had raised his eyebrows when she had asked him to take of his shirt, but he had complied. Then, she had quickly snapped the manacles around his wrists and ankles.

"I'm sorry, Danny," she said, and she was, "But you're always running away from me when I want to test you for something. And having that high an amount of ectoplasm in your blood is really not healthy."

The machine started clicking and the humming increased. Danny started to breathe heavily. Maddie stepped back to the monitor and looked at his vital signs. His heart rate was up, but that was probably from stress. His temperature was low, but she knew that was because of the ectoplasm. It was already starting to rise. The progress indicator was moving slowly, and she looked at the numbers.

_20, 24, 29..._

Danny let out a moan. He was sweating now, she saw, and as she observed him while keeping an eye on the readings on the monitor, she wondered why on earth he was always failing gym. He looked athletic. She tried to remember when was the last time she had seen him without his shirt on. Over a year ago.

_39, 41..._

"Mom, please," he whispered.

He looked very pale now, his eyes watering... no, leaking ectoplasm. The glowing green liquid trailed down at the side of his head, forming a small puddle on the spotless metal table. A feeling of satisfaction rose up in her. It was working. The machine still did what it was supposed to do. A ghost in there would be torn to pieces by the immense magnetic field. Humans would be unaffected. It would clear Danny's system from any ectoplasm.

_48..._

"Mom, stop, stop! You're hurting me! Turn it off!"_  
_

The monitor started to beep. She looked at it in alarm, and saw that his heart rate was dropping and his temperature was still rising.

_54..._

Danny started screaming. Cracks suddenly appeared on his skin, green ectoplasm flowing out, dripping off the table. His eyes were glowing a bright green, his hair started to change color, flickering from black to white to black again.

_61..._

Maddie screamed too and rushed forward, slamming her fist on the red panic button. The noise of the machine increased, the clicks came even faster. Smoke came from the side.

"Mom!"

Jazz rushed in and pushed her out of the way. She dove down on the floor and reached for the plug. At that moment, a power surge went through the wire, sending sparks from the socket in the wall to the red head's hand. With a scream, she was blown backwards against the table that contained the writhing form of her brother.

_65..._

Maddie grabbed a crow bar from the corner and started hitting the machine with it, mindlessly destroying her work, destroying the thing that was torturing her son. She didn't understand what was happening, didn't understand why it was doing this to him, but it had to stop...

_66..._

The machine suddenly fell silent. Maddie just stood there for a moment, gasping, still holding the crow bar. There was ectoplasm everywhere, on the machine the table, the floor... It was sizzling, evaporating that familiar odor of ozone. She heard Jazz whimper from behind the machine, but she ignored her. Her eyes were on the pale, limp form on the table.

His eyes were closed now, his head rolled sideways, facing her. His face was ashen, his hair... It was no longer black. It had white strands in it, as if he had aged suddenly. She heard a strange, choking sound and it took her a moment to realize that she was the one making it. She closed her mouth.

She couldn't move. The lab was quiet. The only sound was the dripping of the ectoplasm from the table in the puddle on the floor.

Behind her, the progress bar on the monitor was blinking, no longer receiving input from the machine.

_67_

_67_

_67..._


	45. 40: Rated

40. Rated

The heavy steel doors closed behind him

"So, did you find him?"

"Yup."

"And?"

Silence in the lab, as two white rings frizzled around the teenage ghost's waist, restoring him to his living, breathing, human counterpart. Green eyes changed to blue, white hair to midnight black, black and white jump suit to an ordinary t-shirt and jeans. His feet landed on the floor with a soft thud, and somehow no one was able to tell that the tall, lean boy was the same tall, lean ghost hero of Amity Park.

"Danny, come on, did he have it?"

Anxious anticipation in the goth's voice now, looking in amazement at her ghostly friend as he remained silent. He didn't look at her, but instead looked at the stairs leading up, as if looking for an escape. To her surprise, he blushed.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?" she asked, now slightly annoyed.

"I don't think so," Danny said.

He still avoided her eyes.

"Come on, Danny, I just want to know if you found my scrapbook. Did he have the box?"

"I don't know."

With that, he brushed past her and almost ran up the stairs. With a growl, she followed him, overtaking him before he had reached the top. She grabbed his arm.

"What's with you! Why won't you tell me what happened? He didn't... he didn't destroy my scrapbook did he? I'll kill him all over again if he did that! It took me years to get all those articles, all those pictures together! Remember when you didn't remember knowing me, and I convinced you you were a super hero with it..."

"Sam!"

She stopped, her mouth hanging open, staring into the exasperated face of her almost but not quite boyfriend. He had a strange, almost haunted look in his eyes... and something else too. She couldn't place it. He reached out and closed her mouth. She got angry.

"Fine. Don't tell me."

She let go of his arm, stomped to the living room and sat down on the couch with her arms crossed. He followed her, but stopped in the door frame and leaned against it.

"Look," he said, "It's not that I don't want to tell you, it's just that I don't know how..."

Again, he blushed. Sam frowned. The last time she had seen Danny flustered like that was when his father had started trying to explain about the birds and bees right in front of her and Tucker. Danny had pushed them out of the kitchen, and they had been laughing at his red face the whole day.

"What did he do, talk about his love life to you?" she asked him.

He let out a short laugh. "Something like that."

He came into the room and sat down on the couch next to her, leaning his elbows on his knees, looking down.

"Um," he said, "Remember Box Lunch?"

"Ew," Sam said, "The daughter of him and the Lunch Lady? Who Clockwork sent back in time to fight you two years ago... wait, that sounds weird. She doesn't exist yet. Or does she?"

Danny didn't look up, but kept his gaze steadily on the ground.

"Not yet," he muttered, "But she will soon."

Silence in the room as Sam processed that statement.

"You mean..."

"Yes."

"When you..."

"Uh huh."

"And they..."

"Yup."

"Oh, my..."

They sat in silence, each processing and trying to push out unsavory mental images.

"Danny! Where's the fudge... Oh, you're with your girlfriend!"

Jack Fenton barged into the room, moving his bulk swiftly from the front door to the kitchen. Moments later, he reappeared, chewing something. He eyed the two teenagers on the couch, sitting close together, red faced.

"I wasn't interrupting something, was I?" he boomed, and then a sly grin spread on his face. "I remember dating your mom, we always used to cuddle up on the couch at her place, of course we didn't have parents to barge in on us there, just roommates, but we knew when they were gone for hours so we could..."

Danny and Sam fled.


	46. 32: Night

32. Night

He loved the darkness. Sitting in the backseat of the GAV, staring out of the window, he imagined himself out there, in the woods, the fields they were passing. No houses to be seen, no roads, no _civilization_. Just plain nothing. Darkness. He imagined himself sitting there, not being able to see a thing except when looking up at the stars. The stars would be his only companion. He felt connected somehow, as if a part of him was already out there, in the cold, away from the scant light inside the car. 

Jazz was sitting next to him, quietly listening to her iPod. His mother was driving, thankfully, and his father had fallen asleep. He was snoring a little, his mouth open, his head leaning backwards because the seat's back was too low for him. The humming sound of the engine was hypnotizing, enhancing his feeling of wanting to be out there, wanting to be away from the light.

It had happened more often lately, as his inability to sleep had made him more aware of the particular charm of the night, the absence of human life, the orange glow of the streetlights, the darkness of the alleys of his town. He would lurk there, feeling the blackness seep into him, darkening his mood until he could no longer tell himself apart from the shadows. It was a pleasant feeling. No tiredness, no worries. No obligations. 

And now he was sitting in the back of the strange car, on the way home from a family visit. There were only a few cars on the highway this late at night, and most of the time it seemed that they were alone. Only the headlights of the GAV lit up their bubble, their light in the darkness. Outside, there was nothing.

He pressed his head against the window, feeling the cold glass against his forehead. One day, he would be out there. He would become one with it, sever all connections to the light he had started first to shy away from, then loathe. One day, soon. As Sam had put it so aptly, he was a creature of the night.


	47. 28: Sorrow

28. Sorrow

It was unreal. The world kept turning, the clock kept ticking, advancing time with a ruthlessness even Clockwork didn't possess. Her surroundings seemed both surreal and frighteningly down to earth. She even smiled at the driver when she stepped into the black limousine, moving with practiced ease, quietly sitting down next to her parents, who, for once, hadn't complained about the color of her clothes. They were looking solemn, and Sam felt a laugh bubbling up in her. She quickly suppressed it. They wouldn't understand. She wasn't sure she understood either.

The car started moving, it's engine making almost no sound, the dark windows shutting everybody out. They didn't talk, there was nothing to talk about, everything had already been said. Today was the closure, the farewell to a friend she had known for so long, her brother in every way but genetics. When she thought of his smiling face, tears rose to her eyes. She suppressed them. There would be plenty of time for that later.

Way too soon they arrived at the church, the limousine stopping in front of the entrance. Her parents got out, and Sam followed, keeping her hands on her black dress so it wouldn't get stuck somewhere. Then she straightened, and looked around. 

Lots of young people, friends, family, school and college mates. Many of them she knew. More of them she didn't. He was well liked, people had traveled far to be here on this day, the day he had joked about a little too often. Ghost hunting was a dangerous business, and his clumsiness had caused her a number of almost heart attacks, but he had always been fine. Unscratched. And now this.

Of all the stupid things to happen, she thought when she entered the church and looked around in the darkness for her other best friend, this was the most stupid. An accident. A drunk driver, swerving on the road. Hitting him while he was riding his bike, oblivious. A lone tree, standing in his way as he was pummeled through the air...

Sam felt an unreasonable anger at the tree rising in her. If it hadn't been there... If he had left only a few seconds earlier, or later, if the bar owner had held the man back when he went out of the bar and got into his car... The timing of the thing infuriated her. Circumstances had conspired to make it happen, the disaster in the make before either of the participants were aware of it. The drunk in the car. The woman and her daughter in the car behind him, witnesses. Her friend on the bike. The stupid tree.

She sat down at the front, next to his grieving parents. The seat next to her was empty. He was late, as always. He would probably be late for his own funeral. She listened to the murmur of voices in the room, the subdued whispers of people offering their condolences. She felt strangely at peace, until her eyes caught the casket standing in the front. Closed. You don't want to see him, they had said, remember him as he was.

She had wanted to see him anyway, to know what had happened to him, to try and understand his passing. Because it was still unreal. Tears pricked in her eyes and she quickly looked away from the casket. As long as she didn't look at it, she was OK.

Somebody stepped past her and she looked up, straight into the sad, blue eyes of her best friend. She could see he had been crying, but he was calm now, composed. She knew he was going to say something later on, and she wondered if he would have the strength to do it without breaking down.

"Hey," he said softly, sitting down next to her, "You OK?"

She nodded, suddenly not trusting herself to speak. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it. It felt both comforting and meaningless, increasing her feeling of detachment of the thing. She felt like she was playing a role, acting the sad, mourning friend, when in reality, she wanted to laugh and joke about it. For a moment, she was afraid she would do just that, so to get back to reality, she looked at the casket again. And began to cry.

She didn't listen to the minister's speech, the words sliding past her, not touching her. Then his father spoke, broke down, continued anyway and did touch her. She couldn't remember what he had said though. Then Danny was up, and she looked at him as he tried to convey their friendship, their threesome, their unbreakable bond that was now broken. His voice was steady and almost emotionless. Sam noticed that he didn't once look at the casket.

When he sat down next to her again she felt him shaking, and she noticed she was shaking too. The rest of the sermon passed in a blur, and before she knew it, she was standing outside again, waiting for her friend to be carried to his final resting place. Danny stood next to her, his hands in his pockets, looking at the ground as if trying to keep himself together. She touched his arm and he flinched, but then offered his arm. She took it, and together they followed the carriers to that cold, rectangular hole in the ground that had been dug the previous day.

There were more ceremonies, everybody got handed a rose to be thrown in the grave and Sam took one too. She looked down in the grave, at the casket now deep down, trying to feel something, anything, that would make her realize the finality of it. It didn't come. She threw in the rose anyway, to feel the ritual, to play along with the charade, expecting him to jump up from behind one of the tombstones, yelling 'Gotcha!' with his stupid PDA in his hands, filming their surprised faces.

The sun was shining inappropriately, the soft spring breeze smelled like grass and flowers and the faint smell of the exhaust fumes of the cars on the road next to the cemetery. She turned around and left. She would come back later, when everybody was gone. Maybe she would be able to make sense of it then. 

* * *

_Written in the memory of my friend H.G., who died ten years ago today. Please don't ever drink and drive._


	48. 41: Teamwork

41. Teamwork

O sat in the back of the white van, watching the monitors intently. His back was aching from the hunched position he was in, had been sitting in for the past four hours, but he paid no attention to it. His coffee had gone cold, his sandwich stale, but that too was ignored. He only had eyes for what was happening on the three screens in front of him, and the small spectral reader next to them.

One showed the school, Casper High, and the ghost fight that was taking place there. It wasn't much of a fight, and in fact most students, save for some fan girls, paid no attention to it at all. The burly blue ghost was throwing boxes at the black and white clad one, who floated in front of him, his arms crossed, an annoyed expression on his face. Every time the boxes approached him, he went intangible, allowing them to pass through him.

The second monitor was pointed at the rear of the van, surveying the road. O glanced at it a couple of times, waiting for the obvious to happen, but they were taking their time. Instead, he checked the spectral energy reader, adjusting it a few times to filter out the Box Ghost's signature. He looked at the numbers, muttered something and then wrote it down on the notepad lying on his lap. Then, leaning backwards to stretch his back – groaning in the process – he activated his com link to his partner.

"Agent K, this is agent O, please respond."

The answer was almost immediate. "K here, go ahead O."

"Latest reading. I'm detecting an energy level of eight point one on the subject," he said, "An increase of oh point three since the last reading a month ago."

Silence. Then, "Thank you, O. We're a go."

O closed the com link and turned his head to survey the interior of the van. It was crammed in there with all the equipment, listening devices that were capable of filtering out spectral noise, special surveillance cameras equipped with ecto filters to detect invisible ghosts and a range of ghost weapons, from small ecto guns to huge ecto cannons. All lethal. In a manner of speaking. Agent M was sitting close to the door, holding one of the smaller guns. He raised his eyebrows, and O nodded. Then, he turned his attention back to the monitors.

The third monitor was showing the entrance to an alley across the street. It seemed empty, but they had traced the Phantom's signature there a number of times, just before it vanished. They had stationed agent T there, a new recruit, expendable. The man himself knew it too, because he had gone stark white when they gave him that assignment. Phantom was dangerous, even more so now with his increase in power. If he showed up there, and T was on his own... They had reassured him, saying they had a camera on him – not that that was entirely true, they could only see the entrance of the alley – and they would come to his assistance if needed. But his task was to observe and observe only. They needed to know how the ghost managed to duck under their radar.

Impatiently, O watched Phantom banter with the obnoxious blue box obsessed ghost. Why the kid wasted his time like that O would never understand. It must be part of his act, his particular obsession. First, taunt the ghost, then fight it, cause as much damage as he could and finally... O smiled as the kid retrieved the cylindrical device from behind his back, opened it and sucked the ghost inside. He hovered for a bit, looking smug as some teenage girls started cheering for him. One girl, however, O saw with a frown, wasn't cheering at all, although she was standing quite near. She was dressed in a black tank top that showed a lot of skin, a black and green checkered skirt and heavy combat boots. She was scowling. Phantom mock saluted the pretty girls, turned around and caught sight of her. To O's surprise, he cringed a little.

A loud crash brought O's attention back to the screen that showed what was happening behind their van. A strange vehicle had arrived, looking a little like an RV with lots of antennae and a satellite dish attached to it. On top, there was something that looked suspiciously like a cannon, and O knew for a fact that it was a foaming gun. Nobody could think up something like that but Jack Fenton. And nobody could make it work as admirably as it did like his wife Maddie. They were right on time.

Phantom saw them to, but didn't take off straight away, as O had expected. He hovered patiently, watching the two hazemat clad persons get out of the vehicle, bearing huge cannons and pointing them at him. But they didn't fire. Instead, they approached him warily. O turned up the volume of the directional listening device attached to the top of the van.

"Phantom," the woman said cautiously.

The sound of her voice sounded strangely metallic in O's ears, and he knew it was because of the many filters that processed the sound coming from the microphone. The ghost bowed his head, looking like he might take off at any moment.

"Maddie," he said coolly.

His voice was clear, without the usual echo in it. The spectral filters did an admiral job, and O made a mental note to himself to compliment the programmer who had worked the filters. He clenched his fist as the two well known ghost hunters approached Phantom without attacking him. This was not going according to plan. Maybe it was time to step in. He half turned to his colleague at the door while continuing to listen to the conversation taking place outside.

"Have you caught a ghost for us?" Mrs Fenton asked.

Phantom nodded and held up the cylindrical thermos in his hand. Mrs Fenton lowered the gun somewhat and extended her hand, clearly instructing Phantom to give it to her. He floated closer until he was in reach, but held back the containment device.

"No experimenting," he warned, "No tearing apart molecule by molecule. You study him, then dispose of him in the ghost zone. Like we agreed."

O could feel Mrs Fenton's frown even though she had her back on him. He smiled a little. Crafty woman, she was. She had tricked Phantom into handing over a ghost to them, probably offering a truce of some sort, although why Phantom would want to go along with that was beyond him. It didn't matter though. He had counted on the Fentons to chase Phantom away, but now they didn't. Time to call in their backup.

"Agents L and Z, proceed," he said after re-activating his com link, "K, are you listening?"

"Of course."

O knew that a block away, two GIW agents were now firing up their jet packs and would be approaching quickly. He turned his attention back to the screen and watched as Phantom handed the thermos to Mrs Fenton. He started to say something, but what he had wanted to say was lost in the sudden roar of the engines of the quickly approaching GIW's jet packs. Phantom swirled, hung motionless for a second and then disappeared. Or so he thought.

O hit the green button next to the screens and a greenish haze came over the image on the screens. The spectral filter. Phantom thought he was invisible, but in fact O could see him quite well. He took his time taking off, not leaving high speed, but simply drifting away.

"Cocky much?" O thought to himself, allowing himself a slight feeling of superiority.

He didn't say anything, but leaned back again, watching the events unfold. L and Z both had visors that would allow them to see Phantom as clearly as if he hadn't turned himself invisible, and O wondered briefly why the ghost seemed to have forgotten that they had that ability. On the other hand, it had been a while since they had actively hunted the ghost, it was very possible he had grown complacent. It would be his undoing.

L fired first, and hit Phantom square in the chest. He was blown backwards some, but L's weapon wasn't on full blast. They didn't want to destroy him. They wanted to capture him. Phantom turned visible instantly, and for a brief moment O had a great view of his shocked face.

"That's right, kiddo," he muttered to himself, "Try and get away now, boy. We're right on your tail."

Phantom shot up into the air, both L and Z right behind him. He twisted and turned, evading their blasts. They quickly went out of range of his camera's. O didn't mind. He pressed another button, and one of the screens – the one that had been showing what was happening behind his van – now showed an adapted radar screen. On it, six white dots – agents K, T, L, Z, M and himself – and one green one, Phantom's ecto signature. He frowned. They were getting too far away.

M, who had been watching the radar from the back of the van, didn't need to be told what to do. He opened the door, got out and grabbed one of the larger cannons in passing. He was going to try and drive the kid back to where they wanted him. O quickly murmured a 'back off a little, guys' in his com link and saw the now four – K had joined them too – white dots encircling the elusive ghost.

"T, be ready," O said.

T knew not to answer. The ghost headed back now, and they were giving him more and more room to get away, allowing him to go into one of his favorite hiding places. O felt his anticipation increase as he saw the ghost near the alley. Would he, or wouldn't he go in there and disappear again? If he went somewhere else, the entire operation would have been pointless, their staking out the school for weeks, their training, practicing their teamwork until each of them could do this in their dreams.

Phantom was close now, unaware of O in the van and T in the alley. He stopped, looked back at his pursuers, now very far away... and let himself down in the alley! O almost shouted with joy, feeling the adrenaline rush through his veins. He stared at the screen that was trained on the entrance of the alley. Two kids were walking there, a black boy with a red beret on his head and that same gothic girl that had scowled at Phantom earlier. O watched them look around carefully, and then lean against the wall near the entrance of the alley. Then, suddenly, they pushed themselves off the wall and walked past the entrance... only now there were three of them. A black haired boy with a white t-shirt and faded blue jeans had joined them somehow. The black boy laughed at something and slapped the other boy on the shoulders, and O saw him wince as if in pain. They walked off. O's com link cracked.

"You're not gonna believe this."

O frowned in annoyance. "Agent T," he said, and there was an edge to his voice that should signify the junior agent he had better shape up his reports, "Please report."

He heard the rookie agent fumble with his ear piece for a moment. "Um, right, sorry. Agent T reporting from the.. dumpster." O imagined T wiping a banana peel from his head. "Did you observe a black haired boy leaving the alley?"

"Yes, I did," O said impatiently.

"Better catch him," T said flippantly, "He's our guy. He's Phantom. He transformed. That's why we couldn't catch him. He's hiding as a _human_."

O stared after the tree teenagers walking down the street. They were coming straight at him, oblivious. They were laughing at something, and the black haired boy was gesturing wildly. Mocking them.

A ghost. And a boy.

The implication of it hit O like a ton of bricks. A _hybrid_. A unique creature. Something that would advance their knowledge of ghost-human interaction a thousand fold... a thing to explore, experiment with. A must have for their collection.

O jumped up and grabbed one of the guns, at the same time alerting his team members. Quietly, he opened the front door of the van and casually got out. He knew he stood out in his white suit, but they had their backs on him now, and it would only be a moment before the others arrived. He could hear them coming, the whine of their jet packs coming closer.

The teenagers looked up, slightly alarmed, but otherwise unsuspecting that they were on to them. K arrived first, landing gracefully, or as gracefully as possible with the rather clumsy jet packs. He was on the other side of the threesome. They stopped.

L and M landed next to K, while Z put himself down next to O. They were now surrounded. The black haired teenager started rubbing his neck. He didn't look frightened, just curious and a little nervous. The girl did look frightened though, and she grabbed his arm as if trying to protect him. The black boy just looked confused. O stepped forward, and as one man all agents raised their guns and pointed them at the hybrid.

"Phantom," O said formally, "I hereby apprehend you in the name of the anti-ecto law section 2 subparagraph b, all ghost entities should be captured for further examination to determine their threat to society."

"What!"

The black haired boy stepped back, his eyes wide. The girl stepped in front of him in a rather useless attempt to put herself between him and the GIW. They had them surrounded.

"What are you talking about," she said sharply, "There's no ghost here."

From the corner of his eyes, O saw the approach of two familiar hazemat clad figures, and he knew he had to act quickly. They would interfere, he was sure of that.

"Danny!" Mr Fenton bellowed, "What's going on here? Why are these GIW fellows standing all around you... surrounding you... completely blocking your escape in any direction but up?"

O looked up and saw agent T hovering there in stealth mode, which was not as fast as the normal mode, but every now and then incredibly useful. His white suit was stained, and O saw that there was indeed a banana peel perched on his shoulder. He'd have to wash up later. O looked down at the incredulous face of the black haired teenager again and smirked at him.

"Well, well, wel," he said, "Danny _Fenton _is Danny _Phantom_. And your parents don't know."

He turned to the stunned ghost hunters. "You are aware that you have been violating the anti-ecto law section three subparagraph c, harboring an ectoplasmic fugitive?"

A crowd was now gathering, students from the school, teachers, people passing by. Some were shouting, laughing, pushing each other as if it was some sort of circus, a freak show, others, like a few girls O recognized as being Phantom's fan girls, looked worried. He realized things would get out of hand if he didn't regain control quickly. He watched Fenton/Phantom as realization struck the kid's face, the glances he threw around at the crowd, the way his eyes rested on his parents for a moment. He was going to make a break for it, O realized, and there was only one way he could do that now.

Down.

O smiled.

"Now," he said.

Flashes of green, an explosion, an unearthly howl...

When the smoke cleared, everybody was still standing like they had before, stunned, mouths agape. Everybody but Fenton/Phantom. He was on the ground, writhing as if in agony, his hair flashing, alternating between white and back, his eyes glowing a bright green. If there was any doubt of who he was before , there wasn't now. Four glowing green ropes held him in place, coming from the cable guns of agents M, K, L and Z. Two were around his wrists, digging painfully into his skin, one was around his waist and one around his neck. O let him writhe for a while, and then signaled to his agents to ease up a little. The boy stopped writhing and laid quietly, panting, his brow sweaty and his eyes unfocused.

"No!" The girl cried.

She fell down on her knees and tried to undo Phantom's bonds, but the ropes were too tight. The black boy shook himself out of his stupor and made to help her. O and T had no trouble wrestling them away from the ghost. They handed them over to the police, who had finally arrived at the scene and were trying to disperse the crowd, who were quite willing except for two.

"Danny," they cried, trying to push their way past the police officers, who were having a hard time with them. Mrs Fenton already had floored three of them, and Mr Fenton was using his bulk to simply push past them. O turned, watched for a while and then barked, "Arrest them."

That brought about even more police officers, and the Fentons ceased their resistance, obviously thinking they'd fight this, that they would get out of it, get their son out too, sue... What they didn't know was that the anti-ecto law enabled the GIW to hold them indefinitely, without trial or hearing. Just the suspicion was enough.

With them sufficiently dealt with, O turned back to the beaten figure on the ground. He approached him and squatted down beside his head. Fenton/Phantom looked up at him, his eyes watering, still breathing in short, painful gasps.

"How," he wheezed, "How did you find me?"

O tilted his head and examined his catch clinically. It was better than he could have hoped for. The catch of the century. He would surely get a promotion for this.

"Teamwork," he said.

* * *

_Oh my, did I have fun with this one :)_


	49. 91: Drowning

91. Drowning

He couldn't breathe. As a ghost, that wouldn't have mattered, but as a human, it was a problem. The world around him was reduced to swirling colors, of which the main component seemed to be purple. Sound was also strange, it had an echo-y component to it, low keyed, slow motion voices, incoherent and garbled. His mind was in shambles, no coherent thought managed to drift into his consciousness as his oxygen deprived brain tried to restart.

"Hey," Sam said, "Are you even listening to what I'm saying?"

Danny closed his eyes and shook his head to clear his mind, gripping his Nasty Shake tightly. He really shouldn't look into her eyes.


	50. 77: Test

A/N: Fifty! Halfway!

Anyway, this is what happens when I just start writing without any direction. Just, start off, one sentence leads to the next until you get what looks like some sort of story. Lots of fun for me and making absolutely no sense at all. Let me know if you can figure out what this is about, I certainly can't :)

Yay for randomness!

* * *

77. Test

"Clockwork?"

The silence in the tunnel was oppressive, and his voice sounded out of place and loud in the darkness. He touched the wall, felt its smooth, black surface, trying to feel some reality in this forbidding place. Not that there was something, anything, close to reality in the ghost zone. It had its own rules, which also annoyingly differed from place to place. Like this labyrinth. It forced him on the ground, forced gravity on him. He couldn't fly here. He didn't like that.

"Clockwork!"

He didn't like the rasping sound of his voice either. It sounded like he was afraid, at the end of his powers, tired. He wasn't, not yet. He could go on for hours, forcing his fatigue away, forcing his fears to the back of his mind where they wouldn't bother him. He never allowed them to come to the surface. He was the hero, the strong one, the one people, his friends, depended on. He was fearless.

Ignoring the churning feeling in his stomach – since when did ghosts have stomachs, anyway – he moved forward, his right hand sliding on the wall, his left held forward, controlling the small green orb that lighted his path.

The floor was made of black cobble stones, the ceiling... He couldn't figure out the ceiling. It wasn't there. When he looked up, he only saw blackness, an uneasy darkness that made him feel like he was looking into an abyss. It made the uneasy feeling in his stomach worse – not fear, he wasn't afraid – so he resolved himself to not look at it. Just look down, or at the walls. He didn't really need to see what was above him to find his way through this maze. To find his friends. It should have been easy.

He came at an intersection and stopped. The small green orb hovered in front of him, lighting only a small part of the long hallways leading away from him. They looked identical. Which one?

He directed some more energy to his glowing orb, lighting more of the hallways. They seemed endless. He turned to look at where he came from, and it looked the same. How was he supposed to choose a direction if everything looked exactly the same?

"Clockwork, darn it!"

To take his mind of the annoying labyrinth, he started thinking about the equally annoying ghost of time. Sometimes an ally, more often an enemy, but always manipulating, working according to his own agenda. The observers thought they knew him, knew what he stood for, what he was trying to accomplish, but Danny knew better. Nobody could understand the motivations of the shape shifting ghost, for only he could see everything. Every possibility. Every twist and turn. If Clockwork found it necessary to have him dead, just so a more preferable future could come to pass, he'd have him killed without so much as batting an eye. Definitely not an ally.

He closed his eyes, let the orb dissipate. The tunnels looked the same. They didn't feel the same. Now that he had shut down his most important sensory input, his eyes, he could use the others. His hearing was gone too. The silence was absolute. Even his breathing, his heartbeat were gone. He removed his hand from the wall. No touch. Normally, that would have left smell and taste, but as a ghost, he didn't have those. At least, not with his nose or mouth.

He didn't know how to describe it. It was like smelling. Like tasting. His sixth sense, his ghost sense, the sense that was unreliable at best, or downright wrong at its worst. The sense that warned him of danger, of the proximity of other people or ghosts, of good or bad intentions. Emotions. People's emotions. A source of energy. A source he purposefully cut off, kept a firm lock on. Ghosts fed on people's emotions. There were happy emotions, love, pride, excitement. And there were the darker emotions, disgust, frustration, distress. Anger. Hate.

But the most powerful of them all, the emotion that almost all ghosts went after, the reason ghosts were feared at all, was fear. And Danny feared that fear. Because he wasn't convinced that he would be able to resist its lure, its powerful aura once he opened that particular door. So he kept it closed. He would not use emotions.

Straight ahead was neutral. Nothing came of it, not a ripple. A glass of tasteless water. Safe. From the right, a slight feeling of happiness bubbled to him, far away and unreachable, growing weaker as he tried to focus his attention to it. From the left, the dreaded fear.

It wasn't strong. A mild fear. A fear of having to hold a speech in front of a large audience maybe, a fear of going to a new school for the first time. He turned to the tunnel and swallowed. He now knew what this was about. But he wasn't sure about what was expected of him.

The fear tugged at him, enveloped him, tried to drag him in. He backed away from it, then turned and ran into the opposite direction, towards happiness. As soon as he did that, the fear subsided, and a slight giddy feeling came over him. He started laughing as he was running in the total darkness, the feeling of total satisfaction that he had run away from it momentarily clouding his common sense.

The tunnel had seemed endless. There really was no reason for him to run into a solid wall so soon.

He bounced backwards and hit the floor painfully. For a while, he just laid there, gasping for the air he didn't need, fighting the nausea that washed over him. He wondered if he had a concussion. It certainly felt like it, the way the floor seemed to roll and heave under him. After a while, he pushed himself up and lit another ecto ball. It flickered and sizzled for a moment, but then hung steady. A dead end.

He felt his head and then looked at the green blood on his gloves. Cursing softly, he got to his knees and then on his feet. Then, with one last sour look at the wall that had suddenly blocked his path, he retraced his steps back to the intersection.

Straight ahead, fear. To the right, love. To the left, anger. He was supposed to pick one.

"Why don't you just tell me what you expect of me," he said angrily, "Why do you have to play these stupid games?"

He stared at the tunnel which radiated anger. It was the tunnel he came from. It hadn't felt like that before. He felt his anger grow, he could almost tasted it. It had a metallic taste to it. Like blood. As soon as he realized that, he turned away from it. He was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to pick that road.

The fear in front of him still pulled. It seemed stronger now, seeping into him. It almost made his mouth water. With some effort, he turned right. Love would be alright. He couldn't really go wrong there, could he?

Cautiously, he stepped through the tunnel, lighting his way with the glowing green orb. The feeling was there, seemingly coming out of the walls, making him smile in anticipation. It brought out his own love, his love for his parents, his sister, his friends. Especially one friend in particular. He could see her face in front of him, her smile, her purple eyes, looking back at him. And then he saw them.

They were standing there, right in front of him, smiling at him, waving. He waved back and rushed forward to meet them, his glowing ball floating ahead of him. This time, he saw it coming. The green orb bounced back against an invisible wall, and he stopped just in time. Tentatively, he placed his hands on the glass. His parents. Jazz. Sam and Tucker. They were calling to him, waving, laughing. The love was coming from them. He couldn't reach them. He was cut off.

Tears started running down his face as he pounded his fists on the glass, trying to break through. He needed their love, he couldn't exist without it. He knew all too well what would become of him if they were taken away from him. But it was no use. As he watched, they somehow got further away from him, their tiny figures moving down the tunnel, and he couldn't follow. He was alone again.

With a heavy heart, he turned around, back to the intersection. He had a feeling he finally knew which tunnel he was supposed to pick. The intersection appeared ahead of him and he hesitated, slowing down his steps until he came to a complete standstill about three feet away from the intersection.

Fear to the right. Pulsating, throbbing, vibrating in his chest. The feeling of power, thundering through his mind, almost blocking all other feelings. He moved closer. Straight ahead, the vague, calm feeling of contentment. To his left, annoyance. They were unimportant.

He turned right.

* * *

"Hi Mrs Fenton, how's Danny doing?"

"Oh, hi, Tucker, Sam, why don't you go up and see for yourself? He was still sleeping earlier, no surprise after a night like that, but maybe it's time he woke up."

Sam paused at the bottom of the stairs. "What do you mean, a 'night like that'?"

"He was tossing and turning, and we just couldn't wake him up. He calmed down in the morning though. Go on, go see him. I need to get some rest."

The two friends quickly ran up the stairs like they always did, taking the steps two at a time. Jazz stuck her head out of her room, frowned at them and pointedly closed the door. It was Saturday morning, not too early, in fact, just early enough to still call it morning. Sam hesitated at her friend's door, until Tucker nudged her, a devilish grin on his face.

"Afraid he's naked?"

She scowled at him and opened the door. The room was shaded, the curtains still closed. The sun was trying to protrude the dark blue fabric of them, with only limited success. A narrow beam of sunlight lit the NASA poster on the opposite wall. Under the poster, a bed. On the bed, a sleeping teenage boy with black, messy hair, wearing a white tank top. His breathing was rasping, his face pale, but he didn't look as bad as Sam remembered from the day before. She walked closer and touched his arm.

* * *

It consumed him. He was on an incredible high, the rush he felt was almost unbearable. He heard an insane laughter, a loud, boyish voice, and realized it was himself he was hearing. Colors exploded in front of his eyes, an incredible brightness, a powerful feeling of _being_. He could do anything, he was all powerful. With a flip of his finger he could root out trees, or tip buildings. With one blast, he could take down a city, burn it to the ground, wipe it off the face of the earth more thoroughly than a nuclear bomb could. His wail... he shuddered. Even in this state, he didn't want to think about what his ghostly wail could do.

Fear. He needed it. Needed more of it. He could never let it go. He let himself drift on the waves, a mad roller coaster ride in hell. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he knew he was failing. Failing a test. It was unimportant. He was burning inside, fueled by the fear that was still around him, clutching it, taking it all in.

A cool hand on his arm.

He blinked in surprise at the unexpectedness of it. Then he dismissed it. It was unimportant, a minor distraction, easily disposed off. He grabbed the hand and tried to push it away. And he couldn't let go. His hand wrapped itself around a slender wrist, and the cool hand stayed on his arm, now clutching it desperately. He tried to tear himself away, but couldn't. What was he doing?

Slowly, somewhere deep inside of him, the feeling returned, the feeling of how it had felt when he had fallen down in the playground and his mother picked him up. The feeling of hot chocolate in the fall, the feeling of jumping in the cool water of the pool in the summer. Two amethyst eyes staring at him.

"Sam," he croaked.

"Danny," she said, "You're hurting me."

With some effort, he let go of her, and she started rubbing her wrist. To his dismay, he saw red, finger shaped marks on it. Tucker stared at him, a worried expression on his face.

"I'm so sorry, Sam," Danny said, "I didn't mean to hurt you."

He looked around his room. Everything was as it should be. Nothing strange, nothing to make him suspect he was still in the ghost zone, still being manipulated by the ghost of time. Of course, being in his own bedroom didn't mean he wasn't being manipulated. With some effort, he popped himself up on one arm.

"Clockwork, you bastard," he said, much to the surprise of his friends, "Now did I pass your stupid test or not?"


	51. 59: No Way Out

59. No Way Out

It shouldn't have happened. He had controlled it, he knew he had controlled it, and yet here he was, staring at the smoking remains of what once was Caspar High school, reduced to a huge pile of rubble. It was amazing, he thought, a distant thought, a mad, laughing thought, how little remained of the boring, blocky building. Once three stories high, it had collapsed onto itself, leaving nothing but stones and dust. Gray dust. In fact, everything was just... gray.

Slowly, he stepped forward, commanding his feet, a tenuous command, but there. His white boots almost made no indent in the dirt on the ground as he was light, very light, almost, but not quite, weightless. For a moment, his mind drifted away to a safer place, a dream, becoming an astronaut, going into space, travel to the moon, the planets, the stars...

Darker thoughts invaded his mind, pushing the dream away, laughing at him, mocking him. He'd never be an astronaut, he had always known that, not with his grades. And even if he had been a straight A student, he'd never have passed the physical tests, even if he had remained fully human. As a half ghost, physicals would bring him a one-way trip to the labs of the GIW. There was just no way a blood test wouldn't show the excess amount of ectoplasm in his body.

Thoughts of the GIW pushed back the darker self, because although their incompetence was legendary, the GIW had something neither he, his parents or Valerie had: numbers. Where one or two agents failed, three, four, ten or even fifty might succeed. If he was to survive, he needed to at least appear harmless, although the destruction would be a little hard to explain. Glowing red eyes would be a dead giveaway.

A desperate smile tugged his lips as he continued, a smile because the alternative would have been crying and screaming. He still had control. For a moment, he considered the way he must look, a mad ghost, smiling at destruction, but then dismissed it. There was nobody there to see him. Nobody alive, anyway. If he interpreted his ghost sense correctly, and he nearly always did, there were at least two ghosts nearby, one right in front of him and one a little to the right. They were quiet though, no doubt stunned by the force of the onslaught, the insane power display that had flattened the building in one blast, literally obliterating it. It would have obliterated the ghosts too if they hadn't managed to evade it, barely.

Now, they were keeping quiet, seemingly not wanting to aggravate him or even gain his attention. His darker thoughts swirled and pleaded, wishing, hoping they would make themselves known, challenge him, because then he'd lose control again and _he_ could take over. The scary part was that part of him, the part that had remained sane, actually agreed.

He stopped. He had reached what seemed to have been the entrance to the building, part of the steps that had led up to the doors still there. He knew those steps well, he had sat on them often enough, waiting for his friends, a little to the side as not to be trampled by other students rushing past. Somehow, nobody ever noticed him there, sitting, waiting, watching, not even the football players who loved tormenting him.

Unsure of what to do, he turned around and watched the crowd in the distance, hardly visible through the shimmering of the green ghost shield that had been erected around the school minutes after it had been destroyed. A ghost shield, generated by a device in the basement of the demolished building, somehow miraculously surviving the weight of the rubble that had crashed upon it. His parents had installed it after Pariah Dark's invasion, almost two years ago, replacing the one that had been destroyed in what was generally referred to as 'The Ghost War'. He had known it was there. He hadn't known it would be his undoing.

He was trapped, together with the two weak ghosts that were hardly strong enough to keep form, let alone attack him. His reaction to them had been excessive, he knew it, but like they say, it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Of course, anything involving destruction always seemed like a good idea to his darker self. He could only be thankful at the fact that the school had been out for hours, which probably meant there hadn't been anybody inside. He couldn't be sure though.

He couldn't go human. There was no way to hide, he was in plain sight, and although being captured as a ghost would be... unpleasant, being captured as a human-ghost _hybrid_ would be... well, he didn't want to think about it. His nightmares had come up with terrifying scenarios, and none of them ended anywhere near '...and so he lived happily ever after'. He was sure that whatever his subconscious, overstimulated by countless horror movies and even more countless trips to the ghost zone came up with, reality could very well be much worse than he could imagine. There was no limit to human cruelty.

Something changed. He blinked and stared at a point in the ghost shield, a point where he thought he had seen a flicker of movement, a break in the green, something white...

And then there were more of them. They were advancing on him, grim smiles on their faces, triumphant as if they had already beaten him. The ecto guns – scratch that, ecto cannons – they were holding all pointed at him, their gleaming deadliness enough to intimidate even the strongest ghost.

He felt the fear then, washing over him in waves of terror, the knowledge that there was no way out of this, no way to avoid what was going to happen. The ghosts near him, the weak apparitions, hardly existing at all, drifted away, seemingly trying to run from the inevitable. They were quickly shot down, captured, stored in some storage device that bore a frightening resemblance to one of his parents' thermoses.

He shifted.

The force inside of him moved, the darkness overwhelmed him, and for a moment he was blind. He was still there, watching, letting the rage take him, replacing the fear, letting his darker self out, the one he had promised, sworn, would forever stay hidden. He felt himself being pushed away, felt the power surge go through him, making him glow, felt the burning red take over his eyes. Then a presence, malicious, angry but above all terrified, alien to him and yet disturbingly familiar and comforting even, took over. He wanted to open his eyes, wanted to see what was going on but a surprisingly gentle push shoved him back to the back of his mind, whispering softly, _don't look_.

So he sat back, disturbed by his inactivity, his readiness to accept his other self, his willingness to let _him_ handle the situation. A situation he knew he couldn't get out of without there being casualties. He felt himself move, dodge, fire, using that seemingly endless source of power, a source of power he himself had always been unwilling to use. His other self had no qualms about that though. The emotions, the fears, the anxieties of other people, they were there in abundance, because even through their numbers – there must have been at least thirty GIW advancing on him – they were still afraid of him. And rightly so.

It was surprisingly easy.


	52. 19: Gray

19. Gray

It was odd. Sitting there on the bench in the park, on top of the hill, overlooking the pond, the playground, the road and in the distance the school, it's top floor and roof rising higher than the trees. Behind the school, the bleachers, the football field, the fence and then another road. There were people about, walking in the park, children were playing, running after a brightly colored ball, screaming. Everything looked normal.

The siren of the ambulance pierced through the bubble he had placed himself in, the safe place he had created for himself to retreat into if the world became too much for him. Enhanced with some of his ghost powers, it was almost a real bubble. Sound was muffled in it. He could watch the world without participating. As if it wasn't real.

Problem was, inevitably he had to come out again at some point. He couldn't stay in his bubble forever. He'd have to go find his friends, go home, talk to his family, pretend nothing had happened, that everything was fine, except for... well.

The siren of the ambulance was annoying. It came closer now, as he knew it would, rushing down the road next to the park, into the direction of the football field. A minute later, he could see it rush past the entrance to the park, turn right next to the school and then disappear behind the trees. It would go on, he knew, until it reached the entrance to the football field, and then would probably keep going, not caring in the least they were ruining the grass, causing deep indents in the carefully kept field. Not when every second counted.

Not that it would do any good.

He remembered the red suit, how it had contrasted with the green grass. The cracked visor. The stillness of her body. The stunned disbelieve of the onlookers as the Red Huntress had crashed to the ground, her hover board unable to catch up. He had hung high above her, holding the thermos that had captured the ghost an instant before. The ghost he had captured instead of saving her.

Too much noise entered his bubble. Too much brightness, too much color. He increased the trickle of power he fed into his shield, strengthening it some more. Nobody could see it but him, a slight greenish glow surrounding him. If he used a shield at full force, it was visible to the human eye. But not this. If somebody were to approach him – which his stony expression didn't encourage – they would feel a momentary prickling, and probably notice a strange cold that surrounded him, but that would be it. Sam or Tucker might have a better idea, used as they were to his powers, but even they couldn't really know what he was doing. The didn't understand, not really. They only saw the cool powers, the ease at which he used them. They never saw the downside. They couldn't.

He was responsible. Whatever happened in his vicinity, all the ghost fights, the property that got destroyed, the people who got hurt, it was all his fault. He was the hero, he was supposed to save everybody, and that was all people ever saw. That or they thought he was a menace to society and should be destroyed, taken apart molecule by molecule. Lately, he was beginning to think those latter were right.

The siren had fallen silent now. He blinked, staring into the direction of the school. It was quiet in his bubble. He could still see the children screaming at their game down the hill, their mouths moving, happily shouting at each other, but he no longer heard them. The brightly colored ball had turned dark, rolling over the gray grass. Inside his bubble, his bench had a slim cold white layer on top of it.

He liked the quiet. He didn't like the cold much, but there wasn't much he could do about it. Other than dissipating his bubble, and that was not an option. Because if he did that, he would let the world back in, and at that moment, he could do very well without the world. No, his bubble was fine.

It had been either capturing the ghost, about to fire a massive ecto blast at the entire football team, including a certain star football player who always stuffed him into his locker, or saving Valerie, falling down from her damaged hover board, the thing no longer following her commands but randomly swerving through the air. He had thought he could do both.

Which, of course, had been impossible.

While watching her fall down to the ground with terminal velocity, knowing he was too far away, he would never make it, something clicked inside his head. Before, it had been a game. No longer. His powers, his fights, caused somebody's death. Somebody he liked, a little too much maybe. Somebody he could have envisioned himself going out with. Somebody who, at one point, could have been his girlfriend.

Bright red suit. Green grass. Too much color.

More power to the shield. The sky turned pale, the too bright light of the sun got a sharp edge on it. Icicles appeared on the bench. He wrapped his arms around his chest, hugging himself. The ambulance didn't reappear. There was no need to rush anymore. Valerie had all the time in the world.

The world turned gray.

* * *

_Edit 12/10/2008: Go read inukagome15‏'s 'Good and Evil'. This is sort of based off of that._


	53. 42: Standing Still

42. Standing Still

Nobody noticed it at first. He was small, he had always been small. And scrawny. He'll grow, they'd said, look at his father, it's in his genes, just watch. One day, he'll shoot up, he'll be six feet four, tall and handsome and strong. He's only fourteen, so what if he's the smallest boy in his year, barely as tall as his best friend Sam Manson. So what if his other best friend, Tucker Foley, is now four inches taller than he is. Just wait. It's only a matter of time.

They were still saying it when he turned sixteen, although now some people raised their eyebrows in surprise when they learned his age. He got his driving license easily, but got stopped by the police so many times because they thought he was underage that he gave it up altogether and resorted to flying everywhere when he couldn't get a ride. He stayed small. If they didn't know any better, people would have thought he hadn't aged a day since his fourteenth birthday.

The day before he turned seventeen, his parents spoke to him of their concern, suggesting a visit to a doctor to find out what was stinting his growth, expressing their concern that it was something ghostly. He listened to them quietly, without protest. He didn't tell them he was fine, didn't tell them he didn't want to see any doctor ever and most certainly didn't tell them he was part ghost.

On his seventeenth birthday, he disappeared.

They looked for him everywhere, his parents, the police, even Vlad Masters. He was never found. His friends and his sister seemed to take his disappearance in stride, quietly going about their ways, always sad, avoiding other people. Their friend, brother was gone, there was nothing they could do about it, he had made his decision. The police questioned them, sure that they knew something, but they stuck by their remarkably consistent story.

Danny had been using drugs. He had hung with the wrong crowd, drug dealers, gang members. The drugs had stinted his growth. He had fled because they were after him. End of story. And the story made sense to the police, even though his parents were adamant. Danny had never used drugs. But, the police said, the parents are always the last ones to know. The case was closed.

Life went on. Sam and Tucker graduated high school, then Jazz graduated college early and went to study para-psychology. She published several standard works on the subject, and two best sellers in which ghosts were explained to the general public. She moved away from Amity Park, got married, had three children, two red head girls and a dark haired boy who was the spitting image of his uncle.

Fifteen years after her brother's disappearance, she returned to her place of birth, having just gone through a rather nasty divorce, deciding that returning to her home town, close to her parents, was the best way to get back on her feet again. She bought a house close to that of her parents, opened up a new practice and quickly settled back into the town.

Years passed. Her children grew older, her son entered Casper High School, her practice thrived. Ghost still visited the town, but were efficiently and quietly dealt with. Her father tried to interest her children for ghost research and she let him talk, knowing now that the man's obsession with ghosts would never go away, that he was still looking for his son. The son everybody long thought dead.

The boy entered her practice as he always did, through the back door. She didn't look up from her laptop, typing up a report of her last client, wanting to at least finish the sentence before she talked to him. He sat down quietly and waited, a faint smile on his lips. Finally, she looked up.

"Hi, Danny," she said.

"Hey Jazz," the boy said, giving her a goofy grin.

They smiled at each other.

"Any unusual ghost fights lately?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Nah. The usual. You know. Skulker, Desiree. The Box Ghost. Some big snake that caused trouble in the mall. You must have read about it."

She nodded. For a moment, worry flashed over her features, before returning to her usual neutral mask she always wore whenever he visited. Just like he did. He got up and started moving around her office, picking up things and putting them down again.

"People got hurt during that snake attack," Jazz said.

Danny nodded absentmindedly. He held up his hand and furrowed his brows. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a small ice crystal appeared, having a slight green glow over it.

"Look," he said. He placed the crystal on her desk. Then he stepped back, stared at it for a moment intensely, and the crystal started to hover. Jazz raised her eyebrows.

"New power? Telekinesis?"

Danny shook his head. "Nope. Can't move stuff, not like the Box Ghost can. I still haven't figured out how he does that. But I can influence ectoplasm from a distance." He made the crystal rotate rapidly. Small drops flew off it and hit Jazz in the face.

"Hey! Cut that out," she said, covering the papers that were laying in front of her.

Danny laughed. "Aw Jazz, stop being such an..."

"Adult?" she said dryly.

He was quiet. Then he laughed again. "Right," he said.

He dropped down in the chair and put his legs over the armrests.

"I saw Jack the other day," he said casually.

"Jack as in my son Jack?" Jazz asked.

Danny grinned. "Did you know Paulina has a daughter?" he asked, "About fourteen? Attending Casper High?"

"You didn't..."

Danny smiled and waved his hand. "Nope. Just watched. He has a serious crush on her. I did go and talk to her for a bit after he left though."

"Danny!" she said warningly.

He rolled his eyes. "Come on, Jazz, I can talk to people. It's not like they know who I am. Nobody knows me."

They were silent once again. Jazz fiddled with a pencil. A truck drove by, making the vase in the window rattle for a moment.

"No regrets?" Jazz asked.

Danny didn't move for a moment. She always asked him that, and it always signified the end of their conversation. Slowly, he let his legs fall down from the armrest, sitting up straight. His eyes darkened for a moment, looking strangely old in that young face. Then the smile was back. He got up.

"No regrets," he said, as he always did.

The two rings appeared around his waist, one traveling up, one down. Danny Phantom hovered in her office now, and she shivered from the drop in temperature. She expected him to disappear, as he usually did, just going invisible and disappear from sight and moments later she would know he had left because the chill had left the room, but this time he remained a little while longer.

"I'm a ghost, Jazz," he said, his voice now sounding eerily hollow and ghostly, "I died twenty three years ago. Maybe it's time to stop standing still."

The chill in the room suddenly had nothing to do with the ghostly presence anymore. Jazz's eyes went wide when she realized what he was saying.

"No," she said, "Don't say that, Danny, you're not dead."

His eyes glowed brighter. "We knew this would happen," he whispered, and the sound of his voice seemed to come from all around her, echoing off the walls, "There's not much humanity left in me. I can pretend to be human for a little while longer, I think, but the zone is pulling."

A breeze rippled through the room, lifting up some of the papers on her desk. The cold intensified as the ghost in the room continued to radiate power.

"Goodbye, sis," he said.

She never saw him again.


	54. 68: Hero

68. Hero

It was as if time stood still for a moment. A hiccup. A frozen moment, a movie, paused. For the briefest of instances, Sam could see everything with absolute clarity. The counter. The woman behind it, just about to bring her hand to her face. Sam noticed how her mascara had run down her cheek. She had been crying, was still crying. Crybaby, Sam thought. She had time to think that, easily. Because time had stopped.

The tall man standing a little bit to the left was still wearing the ski mask. She could see his eyes, the reflection of the ceiling lamps in them. She couldn't see the rest of his face, wouldn't be able to tell the police what he looked like afterwards, when everything was over and the man had fled. She committed him to memory as he was standing there, holding the gun, his index finger tensing around the trigger, just about to shoot somebody to get the bank personnel to move, to give him the money, his money. The woman behind the counter had tried to explain to him that the money was locked away, that there was a time lock, that they couldn't get to it, but he just wouldn't, couldn't listen. He set an example.

In the weeks that followed the shooting, Sam tried to explain what it was that Danny did. She wanted them to know, wanted them to understand, desperately wanted them to appreciate the sacrifice he made. Because it had been a stupid way to go, there should have been no way for Danny to get shot. He could have gone intangible. No gun should ever have been able to take him down. Ghost weapons, yes. Ghosts, shooting at him, making him crash into buildings with a force that would have been fatal to a normal human being. Would have been fatal to Danny if he had been human at the time. His ghost form was virtually indestructible.

Even when he was human, he could use some of his powers. Go invisible. Shoot ghost rays. Go intangible. Those powers should have saved him. They didn't.

Because right behind him, standing in the line of fire, there was a man in a dark blue suit and wearing a ridiculous pink tie, an innocent bystander like the rest of them, standing frozen on the spot. In that fraction of a second, that fraction in which time had stopped, Danny had weighed his options. Sam had seen it in his eyes, first the terror, then the realization, and finally the acceptance. He couldn't go intangible. The man behind him would be hit. He'd take the bullet himself.

And he died.

Time started again. The man with the ski mask seemed to hesitate, stunned at what he had done. Danny hit the floor. Sam screamed, but she couldn't hear herself screaming. And when she rushed forward to Danny's side, knelt down next to him and placed her hands on his chest in a vain attempt to stop the bleeding, the robber fled. He took no money with him. The whole exercise had been pointless. A pointless shooting. A pointless death.

And when Sam cradled her best friend's head, called his name, tried to find life in those lifeless blue eyes, she knew the man that had been standing behind Danny would never know what he had done for him. And all the while she was screaming at the still form on the floor that he had been stupid, that he deserved to live, that he had had no right to leave her alone, why, why, why him and not the other guy, she knew he disagreed.

Because saving people was what he did. And nobody would know his true heroism.

* * *

_Ew. That was all too depressing. I promise, something fluffy or at least not as dreary next time :)_


	55. 64: Multitasking

A/N:

_Write an interesting drabble about sitting at a table and doing nothing._

I think I succeeded doing at least half of it (the sitting at a table part, heh :). Don't really know if it's interesting enough. If you want interesting, read Cordria's version.

Note to anybody I should have gotten back to in some form or other, I will. Been sick.

* * *

64. Multitasking

Mr Lancer sighed, leaning back in his chair in the almost empty classroom. His hands behind his head, he contemplated the ceiling for a moment, noticing absentmindedly the recent and not so recent stains on it from where the roof had leaked in the corner. Dark, round stains originating from pieces of clay that students had brought from their arts class, and had thrown against the ceiling where they had stuck until well into his lecture, and one perfectly circular one, with a distinct green hue, from where a particularly slimy ghost had passed through, chased by the infamous Danny Phantom.

He didn't contemplate long. First of all, because stains on a ceiling aren't really all that interesting, and second, he'd looked at them countless times before, had even pointed them out to the principal with the suggestion it could at least use some paint. At which point she had guided him to the janitor's closet and had directed him to a rack bearing several cans of paint, saying pleasantly he was absolutely right and that she certainly wasn't one to stop him. He had never brought it up again.

His attention shifted to the activity outside, the football field, only just visible through an opening in the bleachers. Practice was going on there, he could hear the coach's screams, the shouts of the boys, some higher pitched voices too, possibly cheerleaders. The overcast sky looked like it might rain, and he wondered if the cheerleaders would stop their practice if it did. His eyes glazed, and for a while he lost himself in pleasant memories of his own high school cheer leading days.

The raven haired boy sitting in the back of the classroom shifted, scraping the legs of his chair on the floor. Mr Lancer snapped out of his daydreams and looked sternly at him. The boy looked back, tired blue eyes expressionless, hands flat on the table in front of him. He hadn't touched his books, hadn't even opened them to at least give the impression of studying, something, Mr Lancer knew, the boy desperately needed. Instead, he just sat there, staring straight ahead, sitting perfectly still, waiting.

Waiting for his detention to end.

Mr Lancer frowned, but couldn't find anything to criticize. He had suggested to him to use the two hours to study, to catch up, but it had been just that. A suggestion. If the boy wanted to sit there, staring at a point on the wall just behind his teacher, he was welcome to it. Mr Lancer wasn't going to stop him.

It crept him out a little though. To watch the volatile, restless, fifteen year old youth just sit there, doing nothing. As if nothing had happened. As if his black eye didn't bother him. As if the whole detention didn't bother him. And that, Mr Lancer realized, was what bothered him the most. At least twice a week, Daniel Fenton served some sort of punishment, varying from cleaning the cafeteria after initiating another food fight – whatever possessed the boy to keep doing that, Mr Lancer would never understand – to sitting in a classroom hours after school, supervised by a teacher. Quite often, Mr Lancer himself.

It should bother him. Mr Lancer shifted in his seat, a more conformable chair than Danny was in, and looked down at his book. Ender's Game. He was about halfway through it. He had read it before of course, there weren't many books he hadn't, but somehow he couldn't get himself to continue reading. He looked up at his student again, to find the boy now staring at his hands.

Mr Lancer shivered. A sudden chill entered the classroom. The silence in the room intensified, somehow accentuated by the noise coming from outside. He started to look around uncomfortably, knowing full well what a sudden chill in a room could mean.

Daniel moved again. His head still down, he suddenly jerked in his seat, and Mr Lancer almost jumped up in alarm, afraid the boy was somehow being attacked by a ghost, but then he went quiet again. He kept watching him for a while, to make sure there really was nothing wrong, but the boy just dropped his head even lower, resting his chin almost on his chest, and seemed to shut out the world altogether. The only thing that seemed slightly out of place were his clenched fists.

The cold in the room intensified. Now very worried, Mr Lancer opened his mouth to say something, to suggest they leave, call the principal, the police, the GIW or even the boy's parents because there seemed to be a ghost in the room, when Daniel suddenly spoke.

"It's fine."

With a click, Mr Lancer closed his mouth and stared at the boy, who still wouldn't look up. The authority in the voice, the utter conviction of that whatever it was that was in the room was being dealt with sufficiently, and the fact that the boy seemed to have known exactly what Mr Lancer had been about to say, silenced him. He allowed himself to stare at the boy, sitting perfectly still now, hair hanging down, obscuring his face, hands still on the table, fists still clenched.

If he didn't know any better, he'd say the boy was under extreme duress.

He took a deep breath, feeling the icy air fill his lungs. He tore his eyes away from the boy and scanned the room, looking for... something. Something out of the ordinary. Some rippling of the air where a ghost neglected invisibility for a moment, movement where no movement should be, a consciousness without form. And in fact, if you really wanted to see, if you really believed, it was there.

Mr Lancer didn't want to see. But, living in Amity Park, he most certainly believed.

Something snakelike rippled through the air, slithering and hissing softly, stretching itself and then curling up completely. And something else, a second shape, humanoid, with two faintly glowing green eyes, wrestling with the snakelike ghost. He seemed to be holding it by it's tail – if you can speak of that with a snake – and holding on for dear life, while the snake curled and trashed and tried to get free. Then it suddenly turned around and curled itself around the human shaped ghost, which, Mr Lancer was pretty sure of now, was Danny Phantom, fighting an invisible battle for once.

Phantom opened his mouth to cry out, and to Mr Lancer's surprise and dismay, Danny Fenton let out a soft moan. His fists were clenched even tighter now, and Mr Lancer could see the muscle in the boy's arms and shoulders tense. He stared at him in suspicion for a moment, before his eyes were drawn back to the the silent, almost invisible ghost fight going on in his classroom.

If he had ever had any thoughts about fleeing the classroom, they were long gone now. He might have done it earlier, when he hadn't focused on finding the ghost in the classroom. He might have been able to convince Daniel Fenton to leave with him too – although he somehow doubted that, the boy had a strange stubborn streak to him that had him make some strange choices, but no longer. The ghost fight was right between him and the door. If he hadn't known, he probably would have passed right through them and he wouldn't even have known they were there, except maybe for a shiver running up his spine, but now that he saw them, there was no way he was willing to even try. He just had to hope that Danny Phantom would deal with the ghost and then leave them alone.

The air shimmered, condensed, moved. Mr Lancer could no longer make out separate forms. The blurry image had turned even blurrier, a collection of eddies and swirls, random ripples, swift movements. Then, suddenly, the back end of the classroom distorted, turned like some crazy special effect in one of those B movies his students liked so much, and then slammed back into place. All went quiet.

Mr Lancer blinked, glanced at his still unmoving student and then stared at the back of the classroom again, wondering if he had imagined it. The temperature rose slightly. Mr Lancer squinted. For a moment, he thought he locked eyes with a pair of glowing green orbs, floating uncomfortably close. Then they moved backwards and appeared almost out of sight.

To the casual onlooker, there would have been nothing to see. Ghost invisibility is almost perfect. In bright sunlight, outside, it would have been impossible to track him. Here, in the slightly darkened classroom however, and the sparse light from the overcast sky coming through the huge windows, it was entirely possible to see it, if you looked close enough.

And Mr Lancer looked. The humanoid form, the boy shaped air, moved backwards, still facing him. He hovered for a moment near the boy sitting at the desk. And then he disappeared. Mr Lancer kept staring at the place he had seen the ghost boy, and then looked at Daniel Fenton, who seemed to suddenly have relaxed, unclenching his fists and laying his hands flat on the desk once more, head still down. The temperature of the classroom rose even further, rising to an almost normal level.

Mr Lancer cleared his throat. Daniel looked up. And if the slightest of green tinted his eyes for a moment, it would almost certainly go unnoticed. Mr Lancer looked up at the clock on the wall, and then back and Daniel. He nodded. Daniel's eyes slid to the clock also, and the dullness in his eyes lifted. With interest, Mr Lancer watched the boy stuff his belongings into his bag, sling it over his shoulder and make his way over to the door.

"Goodbye, Mr Fenton," Mr Lancer said, just as he was about to step through the door.

The boy paused and looked back.

"See you again, tomorrow, after school," he added, and to his satisfaction saw the brightness in the boy's eyes dull again.

At least he'd got to him this time. The boy turned around again, and Mr Lancer didn't fail to see the tiredness in his pose, the paleness of his face and the way his black eye stood out in it. The boy had refused to tell him how he came by it, and Mr Lancer had let it rest, suspecting that a certain football player had something to do with it. He hadn't pursued the matter, not in the least because aforementioned football player was the school's star football player, but also because of the look of stoic indifference the boy had worn.

Whatever or whoever had caused the black eye, Daniel Fenton didn't care. Being lectured by Mr Lancer or principal Inshiyama about destroying school property made absolutely no impact. Threatening to call his parents had worked in the earlier days, but no longer. The boy just let it slide right off him. Nothing seemed to touch him.

Still, all of it could be considered normal, if somewhat extreme, troubled teenage behavior. But what had Mr Lancer still sitting at his desk, instead of leaving right after his worrisome student, staring out of the window at the small figure walking slowly away from the school, replaying the events of what happened in his classroom earlier in his head, was a single, almost invisible moment, the last ripple of air that had been Danny Phantom, disappearing from the room.

Not just leaving the room. Disappearing right _into_ his student.


	56. 72: Mischief Managed

A/N: Hi. This... was supposed to be up around Christmas. Somehow I forgot to finish it and then completely forgot about it. Warning: shameless DxS fluff :)

* * *

72. Mischief Managed

A little hesitantly, Sam pushed open the front door of the Fenton home. Not that she was ever worried about entering the house, not anymore, not since that first time when a very nervous Danny had invited her over for some gaming, apologizing about his insane parents and his overbearing, curious sister all the way up to his room until she had assured him it was fine. It was just the time of the year, or rather, the Fenton's extreme reaction to it, that had her on edge.

She stepped inside and quietly closed the door behind her, not bothering to lock it. It hadn't been locked in the first place, and in fact, the Fentons never bothered locking it either. For all their anti ghost shields, ecto-gun-trigger-happiness and general ghost paranoia, they were quite lax in more mundane things like, say, locking doors.

Maybe they were right, Sam mused, as she carefully made her way through the empty living room, making sure she didn't step on something that could suddenly come to life. Something that looked like a disassembled ghost bazooooka was on the coffee table, bits and pieces neatly grouped together, which suggested it had been the female rather than the male ghost hunter who had done this.

No burglar in his right mind would enter this house. In fact, most normal people in their right minds wouldn't either. Which - and she silently congratulated herself for it – proved that she herself wasn't entirely in her right mind. Of course, she wasn't the only one. A grin appeared on her face as she spotted the face of one of her best friends, suddenly appearing in the door way of the door to the kitchen.

"Hey Sam," Tucker said happily, "It is you. I thought I heard something. Come on, you gotta see this."

Another voice came from the kitchen, and Sam's grin grew even wider.

"Cut it out, Tucker, I'm doing just fine. I'd be doing even better if you weren't trying to _help_ me."

Well, at least he didn't sound depressed, like last year, Sam mused, as she walked into the kitchen, only to stop on her tracks when she caught sight of her other best friend, scowling at the remains of a burst open bag of flour on the floor. She brought her hand to her mouth and managed to suppress a giggle. After all, Sam Manson did not giggle. Not even in the week before Christmas, uncharacteristically happy as it might make her otherwise.

He looked adorable. For some reason he was dressed in black cargo pants and a black t-shirt, covered in a thin layer of white flour. Flour in his hair, on his hands. Flour on the tip of his nose. And of course a thin layer of flour covering practically the entire kitchen. Tucker, somehow miraculously not covered in flour, grinned.

"Makes him look like a ghost, don't it," he said.

Danny looked up and his expression softened a little when he caught sight of her. Irritably, he wiped the flour from his nose and started patting his clothes, causing a cloud of flour dust. Tucker and Sam started coughing.

"What are you doing?" Sam asked, when the air had cleared somewhat and she had managed to suppress her coughing.

"Baking a cake," Danny said, managing to make it sound like it was the most natural thing in the world.

For the first time, Sam took in the rest of the kitchen. All the usual appliances were still there, the ecto oven, the ecto-toaster, the ecto dishwasher – she shuddered, remembering a nasty incident which involved sharp knives and angry forks – and the refrigerator with the glowing green padlock. All were untouched.

Instead, a second oven was placed on the counter, powered by a long cord running out of the window. A bowl and a mixer on the counter. Butter, eggshells, sugar, and flour. Lots of it.

"Why?" she asked.

Danny shrugged and his face darkened again. Tucker answered for him, as always unfazed by his friend's Christmas antics.

"To show us he really isn't Mr Grumpypants and can actually make an effort to spread the Christmas spirit despite his parent's continued Christmas... um... disagreement."

"Oh," Sam said. She looked around, and then back to the living room, listening. All was quiet. She turned back to Danny. "Where are they? Your parents, I mean?"

A smile crept onto his face which, combined with the frown he seemed to have permanently stuck to his face, gave him a slightly evil look.

"Across town," he said, "Seems there was a ghost fight there. Lots of destruction. Lots of traffic, too. Should take them hours."

"Yup," Tucker said happily, "And that gives us all the time we need to get this house properly decorated, and since Danny can't really be trusted with the Christmas decorations, Jazz ordered him to bake a cake." He pointed a the oven on the counter. "Using the neighbor's oven. And to be on the safe side, using the neighbor's electricity. With ingredients we personally got from the store ourselves."

"You bake cakes?" Sam asked.

Danny shrugged, then suddenly smiled, a more genuine smile this time, lighting up his face. "Actually, I used to bake cakes with my mother all the time when I was younger. Before all this..." He pointed at the slightly glowing kitchen equipment, "Got... um... ecto enhanced. I know what I'm doing."

"OK," Sam said, not entirely convinced. She gestured at the now almost completely settled layer of flour covering everything. "And you decided to decorate the kitchen with flour because...?"

Danny's smile vanished and he glared at Tucker, who grinned sheepishly. "He threw me the bag. I wasn't prepared for it."

Tucker started laughing. "Oh, you were prepared for it alright," he said, "Your reflexes are amazing." He turned to Sam. "He blasted the bag. It exploded. That's why..." He stopped and added a vague hand gesture to finish the sentence.

"And why are you not covered in flour dust?" Sam asked, now interested.

"Danny's reflexes aren't the only ones that are amazing," Tucker said, "I ducked." He pointed at a spot right behind the table that was almost dust free.

The scowl was back on Danny's face, and suddenly Sam felt sorry for him. For fourteen years, he had been absolutely miserable at Christmas, and it had only been last year that he had lightened up a little, realizing that he shouldn't let his parents get to him like that and more importantly, that he shouldn't try and ruin other people's Christmas just for the heck of it. He was making an effort here. She should support him.

"Can't you use some ghost power to clean this all up?" she asked, looking around, "You know, before your parents get home. Or Jazz, for that matter. Where is she, anyway?"

"Getting a tree," Danny said, "And no, I don't have a cleanup ghost ray. I usually destroy things. You want fireworks, I'm your guy. Cleaning up, not so much."

He blew his hair out of his face, causing a small dust cloud. He stared at it, pensively. "Of course," he said, trailing his finger over the counter, drawing a neat straight line on it, "I probably could ignite a dust explosion. That'd burn all the dust in an instant."

"Yeah, and everything else," Sam said. She stepped closer to him and started dusting him down, ignoring the blush that crept on her face from this seemingly intimate activity. "Come on, hotshot, get the vacuum cleaner. You can do the ceiling." She turned to Tucker. "You go get a new bag of flour. And for God sake, don't startle him like that again. I thought you knew better."

Tucker laughed, mock saluted her and quickly left the house, muttering something in passing to Sam that suspiciously sounded like 'There's still some flour on his nose, go for it!'

She wasn't entirely sure she had heard him right, but just in case she had, she punched him in the arm anyway. Tucker looked hurt, but fled when he saw her glare. She turned back to Danny and noticed that, like Tucker had said, there was indeed a tiny spec of white on the side of his nose. She turned scarlet and quickly looked down, berating herself for almost giving in to the sudden impulse of stepping up to her best friend and wiping it off.

Tucker slammed the door behind him and an uncomfortable silence settled over the house. Neither Sam nor Danny moved. When she finally dared to look up at him again, slightly unsettled by his unusual silence, she found him staring at her with a strange look in his eyes. She cleared her throat.

"Uh," she said, and then, hesitantly, pointing at her own nose, "There's... something..."

For a moment, he didn't seem to understand, but then he blinked and brought up his hand to wipe it off.

"Oh, you're right," he said with a cracking voice. Then he coughed, cleared his throat and turned away from her, a helpless look on his face. "We'll never get this cleaned up in time," he moaned.

"Of course we will," Sam said, glad he offered an opening to get back to business. Handling whining teenage boys was something she did well. "Go get the vacuum cleaner. I'll start on the stove and the counter. Go on. Shoo."

He brushed past her, flashing her an awkward smile, but then stopped in the doorway. Placing his hand on the door frame, he looked over his shoulder at Sam, who was already halfway on her way to the kitchen counter.

"Sam?" he said, and again his voice cracked.

She stopped and looked at him, silently wondering why he seemed to have so much trouble with his voice that day.

"Yeah?" she asked, a little impatiently.

He opened his mouth as if wanting to say something, but then closed it again. Sam waited.

"Thanks," he said, finally.

"For what? We haven't even started yet."

He stared at the floor and shuffled his feet, then looked up, past her at the counter. His eyes wandered around the room nervously, until they finally settled back on her again. For all his casual behavior, Sam could see the strain on him.

"For putting up with me," he said.

Sam laughed. "I've been putting up with you for years, you dork," she said.

A hesitant smile broke through on his face, and he shook his head. "That's not what I meant. Thanks for cheering me up though."

Still he didn't leave the kitchen. The expression on his face darkened again however, and she wondered if he was in fact sinking back into his old ways, lashing out at anyone who so much as dared to take the word 'Christmas' in his mouth. She stepped closer to him to intervene and placed a hand on his arm.

"Come on Danny, you're doing great. This is just a minor setback."

It was nice, standing so close to him. And there definitely was a speck of dust near his nose. She looked at it, looking up at his face and then looked straight into his eyes. And froze. She felt the muscle in his arm tense under her touch. He looked down at her.

"I...," he said, "I... Ghost powers, you know. Very good hearing. I... heard..."

"Tucker," Sam said, annoyed.

She wanted to pull back and move away, but before she could even begin to lift the hand off his arm, he had grabbed it.

"Don't," he breathed.

Her heart started pounding. She stayed where she was, uncomfortably close to what was supposed to be her best friend, albeit male best friend. His hand held her wrist in an iron grip, and she wouldn't have been able to escape had she wanted to. But she didn't want to.

"Don't..." She cleared her throat. When had her voice become so raspy? "Don't what?"

"Stop moving away from me," Danny muttered.

He was very close now, leaning forward a little. She could feel his warm breath on her forehead. Tilting her head backward, she stared into his eyes. Danny moved even closer, his hands suddenly finding their way around her waist, while her hands inexplicably found themselves placed loosely on his upper arms. He was taller than she was, but not much. He only had to bend forward a little...

Movement. A bright flash. Another flash, a hard shove against her chest and Sam was falling backwards on the floor. Then coughing, lots of coughing and dust, white dust, everywhere, making it almost impossible to see. Sam started coughing too. A loud voice, yelling, "Aw, man!"

It was impossible to see anything in the kitchen. Thinking they were under attack, Sam quickly scrambled to her hands and knees and scrambled in what she thought was the direction of the door, but actually was the direction of the kitchen counter, which she discovered only when she bumped right into it. It was silent in the kitchen after the first two blasts though, so she waited, straining her ears to listen. Then it dawned on her that they weren't in fact under attack.

The dust settled somewhat, and so did the coughing. Sam pulled herself up and looked around in the now completely white kitchen. Her eyes locked onto a vague figure wearing a red cap, trying to dust himself down.

"Tucker!" she exclaimed, feeling the anger rise, "What on earth did you think you were doing? What part of 'don't startle him' did you not understand? Gah!"

The figure wearing the red cap stopped dusting himself down and looked at her, and then nervously at Danny.

"Taking a picture," he said defensively, "It's not like I've never done that before, and you two looked so cute together."

Sam was glad Tucker couldn't see her red face through the dust cloud. She looked at the dark figure leaning against the door frame, arms crossed, in a pose that seemed to be conveying indifference. She knew better though. Danny was pissed.

"I can't believe this," she said, "This is the second flour sack you've ruined. Not counting the ones you ruined for that school project. And look at all this!" She waved her hand in the air. The dust swirled around her hands. "How are we supposed to clean this all up?"

"The same way you were before," Tucker said, "You guys hadn't even started. I can't believe how much time you two spent gazing into each other's eyes. I went all the way to the store and back."

"The store is just around the corner," Sam snapped, glancing at Danny, who had remained eerily quiet.

"And totally jammed with people. Seriously. I could hardly get in, and I got into a fight with this old lady..."

"We get it." Arms still crossed in front of his chest, Danny seemed to be struggling to keep his temper.

Sam raised her hands and stepped forward, placing herself between Tucker and the fuming half ghost, wondering how to salvage this. Jazz's plan, which had sounded like a good idea before, seemed to have backfired. She glared at Tucker, who shrugged and muttered, "Since when can't he take a little joke like this..."

"Since forever, this close to Christmas, Tucker. And now that he's got these super awesome powerful ghost powers, it might be a good idea to lay off a little."

"I'm standing right here, you know," Danny said.

Sam turned, suddenly fed up with both of them. "I haven't forgotten. Go. Get. The. Vacuum. Cleaner. And quit behaving like a four year old on a temper tantrum, which is annoying in a fifteen year old boy and outright dangerous in a half ghost."

Danny stared at her. The slight green glow coming from his eyes receded. His shoulders shagged. The scowl drooped into something that might be considered contriteness. In the silence, more of the dust settled, making it possible for Sam to see the other side of the kitchen again. The front door slammed.

"Hey," Jazz said, entering the living room.

Danny turned around, arms still crossed. Tucker and Sam joined him in the door frame, effectively blocking Jazz's view on the kitchen's interior. Jazz dropped several packages on the couch and straightened. Then she stared at the three flour covered friends. She blinked.

"Everything under control there?" she asked brightly.

The three friends, as by silent agreement, nodded in unison. Jazz stepped closer.

"So... you wouldn't mind me coming into the kitchen then?"

She was met with a stony silence. Danny glared at Tucker over Sam's head, who was standing in the middle. Sam looked both defiant and embarrassed. An interesting combination, Jazz decided, and she looked at her brother to see what she could read from his face. He looked back at her and blushed.

"Oh, like that, is it?" Jazz smirked, catching Tucker's grin from the corner of her eyes.

She approached them, then stood on her toes to peer over Sam's head into the kitchen.

"Oh my," she said, "And there I was, thinking giving you a simple, _safe_ job would keep you out of trouble..."


	57. 48: Childhood

48. Childhood

"Jazz move over, I can't see."

"Stop pushing me, Danny!"

A huff and an indignant yelp. Maddie rolled her eyes, put down her book – 'Ghosts And Their Habitats' – and got up from the couch she had been sitting on comfortably, trying to read. The noise of her children's squibbing increased, almost completely drowning the clanking sounds coming from the basement. Jack, working on his newest idea, a new way to open a portal to the ghost zone. Maddie had tried to dampen his enthusiasm, to no avail. He was sure it would work. She was slightly skeptical, realizing almost immediately the staggering amount of work it was going to need. She knew things never held Jack's interest for too long, and if it were left to him, the thing would never get past the first roughly sketched draft and maybe the portal entrance Jack was now so vigilantly working on.

Still, a portal to the ghost zone... Standing there, her book and children forgotten, she stared at the stairs leading down to the basement. It couldn't hurt starting some of the calculations, running some simulations, maybe write a specialized program that might contain the plasma within the portal instead of bursting out... they had done it before, after all, with the proto portal.

Her mouth twitched, remembering the accident it had caused, Vlad's illness, the ensuing estrangement... he hadn't even shown up at their wedding, which had pained her more than she cared to admit. But that was all in the past now, it had been ten... no, twelve years. Maybe it was time to start anew. And then Jack's idea of using an ecto filter...

A scream brought her back to the present, and she looked up, just in time to see Danny push his sister away from the cage that contained the guinea pig of their new next door neighbor's daughter. They were on vacation, and Jazz and Danny had enthusiastically offered to look after the pet in the week they would be gone. Maddie looked at the scene and frowned, already regretting her 'yes, of course Sabina can stay with us' as she viewed her ten year old daughter laying on her back, crying, and her eight year old son, squatting in front of the cage, blocking his sister from view.

"Kids," she said, "If you can't share, then the both of you can go upstairs to your room and do something separate for a while. Danny, move over, it's a big cage. Jazz, stop bossing your brother around."

She stepped over her daughter, ignoring the girl's loud but obviously fake sobs, and continued down the stairs to the basement. Halfway down, her children's quarrel was already forgotten, formulas started to form in her head. She needed to write them down quickly, or they would be lost.

As soon as her mother had left the room, Jazz stopped crying. She remained on the floor, though, glaring at her little brother, who was trying to get a glimpse of the shy little creature, hiding under a pile of hay.

"You're scaring it," she said.

"Am not," Danny said, half turning to glare at her.

He turned back and studied the cage, then stuck his finger between the bars.

"Come on, boy, come on out. Let us see you?"

"It's a she."

Danny blinked. "What?"

"It's a she. Her name is Sabina. That's a girls name," Jazz said in her usual know-it-all way. "Move over. You're scaring her."

Now slightly intimidated by the fact that he had mistaken the creature's gender, Danny moved aside to let his big sister handle the coaxing the guinea pig out from its hiding place. Jazz moved up next to him and sat down on her knees, bending forward a little.

"Hello, Sabina, my name is Jazz. Come on out, we're not going to hurt you. Come on, kitty."

"She's a guinea pig, not a kitten."

Jazz turned to her brother. "And she can't understand a word I say anyway. What does it matter if I call her kitty?"

"Just saying."

The guinea pig in the cage moved. Two heads shot back into position, four eyes staring intently at the pile of hay in the middle of the cage.

"It's a haystack," Danny snickered.

"Maybe we need a carrot?" Jazz mused, rubbing her nose. The hay made her nose feel ticklish.

"It's not a rabbit, Jazz."

"Guinea pigs eat carrots too."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I'm older than you!"

"You don't know anything!"

Brother and sister now glared at each other, ignoring the moving haystack in the cage. The clanking sounds from the basement had subsided, leaving an eerie silence that normally had the siblings diving for cover, used to their parents' sometimes dangerous experiments. A truck drove by. The silence intensified. Unnoticed by the children next to the cage, the guinea pig stuck out its pink nose from under the hay.

"JACK! NO! NOT THE..."

Their mother's yell had both Jazz and Danny moving, instantly reacting to the familiar speech pattern. Jazz pushed Danny behind the couch, and kept pushing him until she herself fit behind it as well, the both of them letting out a stream of expletives that should not have been in their vocabulary. Then Jazz turned around, horror struck.

"Sabina!" she yelled.

Just as she was about to crawl back from behind the couch, the basement exploded. A bright green flash and a cloud of black smoke, tinged with green, came out from the basement, instantly covering the entire living room in black, sticky soot. Coughing, the children covered their heads with their hands and tried to remain low to the ground.

"Jazz? Danny? Are you OK?"

Danny looked up, then nudged his sister. "Yeah, mom, we're here," he said.

"Where's dad?" Jazz asked as she straightened, trying to see through the smoke.

"He's fine," their mother's voice sounded through the smoke.

A few moments passed, then a loud whirring sound indicated that Maddie Fenton had turned the ventilation to maximum. The smoke started to recede. Danny and Jazz stood up and surveyed the now completely black room. On the other side, their mother busied herself with opening windows.

"You kids weren't hit directly with that, were you?" she asked.

"No mom," Danny said, eyes wandering through the room, and then settling on the blackened cage of the guinea pig. It had been standing directly in the blast's path.

Slowly, he stepped up to the cage and squatted before it.

"Hey?" he said, "Sabina? Are you still there?"

The haystack moved. Danny sighed in relief. It would be a little hard to explain to their new friend that her pet had died in one of his parents' experiments. He already had a hard time keeping friends. Not making friends, making friends was easy. But usually only one visit to his house was enough to chase them away. Naturally, both Jazz and Danny had been delighted when a family had moved in next door, oblivious to the Fenton's strange household.

"Is she alright?" Jazz asked, trying to wipe some of the black soot from her hair.

"Yeah," Danny said, half turning to smile at her, "She's still there."

He turned back and studied the haystack intently. It moved again a little, but something was off. A small nose stuck out from under it, sniffing.

"Uh," Danny said, "Jazz?"

"Yeah?" Jazz asked, looking cross-eyed at her long, no longer red strands of hair, holding it up to inspect the damage.

"Is Sabina supposed to be green?"

* * *

_LOL. Had a guest a few weeks back and I was terrified I'd somehow kill the small animal. And yes, her name was (and still is, fortunately) Sabina._


	58. 80: Words

80. Words

There really was no reason to be this upset about it, right? He had always known it. His parents hated ghosts, and hated them with a passion. Ghosts were evil, to be hunted down and taken apart molecule by molecule. He had been prepared for it, had run through every conceivable scenario of them finding out, but even the most positive ones – they accepted him, they were sorry, they even kept his secret – turned into a disaster.

They were obsessed with ghosts. Their son being one would be... unacceptable. In the end, they'd want to cure him. They would want to try and take away his ghost powers, would try to turn him 'human' again – whatever that might be. They wouldn't be able to see that he didn't need curing, didn't need 'fixing'. He was fine with who he was, a ghost-human hybrid. He was (almost) unique. He _liked_ being a ghost.

Of course, they didn't see it that way. At all. When he accidentally turned human right in the middle of the lab – why, _why_ did his father have to invent the Fenton equivalent of the Plasmius Maximus – a stunned silence had fallen over the room. His mother at the bottom of the stairs, holding a humongous ecto cannon, pointing straight at him. His father, standing about ten feet away from him, still holding what Danny had already christened the Fenton Maximus, staring at his son open mouthed.

"Oops," Danny said, "Eh... hi?"

For a few seconds, nobody moved, and he started hoping. Hoping that maybe his mother would lower the gun, rush forward and hug him, saying it was alright, that she loved him anyway, that he would always be her son no matter how freaky he had become. And his father, after the original shock, would find his son's abilities cool, and ask him to take him flying sometime.

A few seconds only. Then his father reached out and pressed a button, causing a faintly glowing cage to drop over Danny, trapping him.

"No, wait," he yelled, grabbing the bars, only to quickly let go again when they gave him a bad shock not unlike the specter deflector, "Dad! What are you doing!?"

His mother approached, and although she had lowered the gun, was still scowling at him. Danny winced.

"Mom?" he asked, uncertainly.

"Where's my son?" she asked.

"_I'm_ your son!" he said, stumbling over his words, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you before, but two years ago, when I had that accident with the portal... well, it turned me into a half ghost. I have ghost powers. And yes, I'm Danny Phantom."

"Danny Phantom is evil," his father said, his face a mixture of confusion and disgust, "My son is not evil. I know him. He would never kidnap the mayor or steal all that jewelry."

"I was framed!" Danny yelled, turning to face his father, "I didn't kidnap the mayor, he was overshadowed. And those jewelry stores... that wasn't me. Well, it was me, but... somebody was controlling me. I didn't know what I was doing."

He shot his father a pleading look, thereby neglecting to keep an eye on his mother. An oversight, as she suddenly poked him in the back with her bo staff. Danny yelped at the stinging feeling that spread in his shoulders.

"Ghost," she said.

"Yes." Danny said, now turning to face her, "I mean, no. I'm not a ghost now. I'm human, look, see?" He placed a hand on his chest. "Breathing. And come and feel this." He approached the bars and carefully reached out, sticking his hand through the opening. His mother backed away and looked at him distrustfully. "I have a pulse. Come and feel."

Instead of doing that, his mother pointed the bo staff at his hand and he quickly withdrew. The expression on her face didn't change, and Danny started to have a bad feeling about this. He turned back to his father, shooting him a pleading look. His father looked at him, frowning.

"Don't worry, Danny," he said, "We'll get you out of there. Can you hear me? Are you still in there?"

"What?" Danny asked, "No. No, dad, it's me. Danny. Your son. I've always been your son."

His father backed away, shaking his head. From the corner of his eye, Danny saw his mother round the cage, moving to stand next to his father.

"Mom?" he asked.

Two blank faces stared at him. His heart sank, and he stepped back. He knew those faces, he had seen them often enough in his imagination, running through his scenarios of possible outcomes of his parents finding out. He knew what they were going to say now, there was no reason to be surprised about it or even upset about it. After all, they were only words.

"You are not our son."


	59. 87: Food

87. Food

Night settled over Amity Park. Streetlights flickered to life, the sky was darkening, the first stars were making their appearance and Venus, the evening star, lit up brightly on the horizon. The cloudless sky turned a greenish purple, the warmth of the day already fading to a more comfortable temperature. People were coming out of their air conditioned houses to enjoy a nice evening, strolling down the busy streets. Restaurants full of people, more on terraces. There was a general air of enjoyment, of relaxation, the beginning of the weekend. Children were screaming in the park, their parents lax, forgetting their normally strict bed time rules.

Deeper in the park, away from the general, well used pathways that were lit by lanterns, under the trees that caught most of the sunlight, it was dark. People didn't venture there at night. First of all because there was no need, as the more commonly used and well lit pathways brought people where they wanted to be, but also because in Amity Park, darkness didn't just mean a lack of light.

It also meant ghosts.

They needn't fear the park though. No ghost had made an appearance for quite a while there now. In fact, the whole of Amity Park seemed almost peaceful. Sure, often enough, some ghost or other would show up and try and wreck havoc, but usually Danny Phantom showed up within minutes, making quick work of the disturbance. The ghost got sucked into the thermos more or less quickly, and the young ghost would disappear again in the blink of an eye. Ghosts had ceased to be an item in the news. The only people still worried about ghosts were the GIW, and they usually showed up only after Phantom was long gone.

The evening progressed, laughter became louder, several bars had people standing outside on the terraces, holding their beers and cigarettes. Children disappeared out of the park and from the streets, teenagers hanging around got sent away by the police, only to scatter and regroup in another place. The town seemed to overflow with energy.

The boy in the dark alley watched the activity, taking in the energy, using it, molding it to his liking before adding it to his own. Hungry blue eyes scanned the people passing by, touching them briefly, causing a shiver to run up their spine. It made them quicken their pace until they had passed the alley, and then had them wondering what had them spooked, looking over their shoulder to the entrance of the alley where nothing could be seen. Then they shrugged, and moved on. The boy smiled.

Slowly, he retreated further into the alley, moving soundlessly. The contrast with the bright world on the end of the alley was staggering. Out there, in the street, there was light. It was clean, full of happy people. Back in the alley, there was only darkness and despair. The boy didn't mind. He lived on despair.

The alley led into a less crowed street, and the boy emerged into it, eyes shooting from left to right, head down as not to be noticed. There were people here too, but they paid him no mind. There were street kids everywhere, this was just another skinny example with worn out clothes and too long hair, hanging in his face. If the boy wanted help, they reasoned, he would have to ask for it. He didn't. Instead, he moved down the street like a ghost, and disappeared into another alley.

Weaving his way through town, rarely coming out in the open where people could see him, he made his way to a particularly run down alleyway. Fire escapes were high above his head and he looked up briefly, stepping over the legs of some poor bum passed out with his back against the wall, an undefinable bottle wrapped in brown paper in his hand. Overflowing dumpsters spread an odor that would have had many people reeling. The boy didn't even wrinkle his nose, having long gotten used to the rotten smell. Back there, in the abandoned, boarded up house at the end of the street, he had made himself comfortable.

He looked back only once, making sure the bum was really passed out, and then phased through the wall. Inside, he sank down on the floor. Leaning against the wall, he wrapped his arms around his knees and closed his eyes.

Despair.

Not his own. He was past that. No, all around him, above him, in the houses that were almost as decrepit as the one he had made his liar in, there were people. Squatters. Drunks. Junks. People renting a small apartment, trying to survive on minimum wages. Hungry people, using all the money they had to feed their children. Criminals, drug dealers, fearing the next day because it might be their last, planning on murdering their opponents so that they themselves would survive. Gang members, high on speed.

A rich mixture of emotions. The boy had long since given up wondering why these were the most potent of human emotions, contained the most energy, were the most _satisfying_. All he knew was that he needed them to keep going. He didn't need food any longer, in fact, hadn't eaten for at least a month, when he had stolen that apple. And the only reason he had stolen the apple was to feel the shopkeeper's anger.

It had tasted good though. The apple. Nice and fresh. Maybe he should try it again. The anger had been nice too.

While contemplating apples and anger, he noticed something else. A disturbance. A tremor in the pattern of emotions. Fear spiked. The boy licked his lips and waited, knowing what was to come. Moments later, something cold stirred inside of him, and a blue mist left his mouth.

His eyes shot open, glowing an emerald green. A bright flash lit up the room, momentarily showing a thin mattress in the corner with an old sleeping bag on top of it. Next to that, an old backpack. The ghost hovered for a moment, tilting his head, concentrating on where the nearby ghost causing the disturbance was located.

"Technus," he muttered.

He flew to his makeshift bed, opened the backpack and retrieved a battered thermos. A feral grin spread on his face as he felt both the fear of the nearby people rise and the increase of the blue mist that still escaped his mouth.

This was his hunting ground, his territory. Other ghosts had to keep away, and they knew it. They still tried though, but he didn't mind. It gave him something to do besides harvesting the emotions of his humans.

After all, Amity Park was his.


	60. 90: Triangle

90. Triangle

It was the oddest sensation. From his vantage point on the hill, Vlad could oversee most of the extensive grounds of his castle – the part of it that mattered, anyway, the football field, the rose garden, the pool – and the familiar feeling of power rose up in him once again, the complete satisfaction that he was looking at _his_ property, _his_ grounds, _his_ castle. Wherever he looked – yes, the woods in the distance too – whatever he saw, it was all his.

The gardener, meticulously maintaining the roses. Two chauffeurs, even though he really needed only one. The pilot of his jet. The maids, currently ghosting through the castle, dusting, cleaning, making everything just to his liking.

The raven haired boy, sitting in the shade of a huge parasol close to the house, reading, his drug induced obedience keeping him rooted on the spot Vlad had told him to be hours ago.

The auburn haired woman dressed in a white dress, slowly walking up to him, taking measured steps up the hill.

And down, deep down in the basement, the huge fool in the orange hazmat suit, his former friend, the friend that had _stolen_ his Maddie away from him. For all Vlad cared, he could rot down there, and in fact he had planned to simply seal the entrance to the dungeon – the architect had raised his eyebrows when he had heard of Vlad's rather specific desires for the redesign of his castle, but had quickly closed his mouth when he saw the amount on the check – if Maddie hadn't begged him to save his life.

She still had the power to make him do anything.

He watched her fondly as she approached him, hair swaying in the slight breeze, dress swirling around her legs, her eyes...

"AAARHG!"

Vlad jumped up from the couch, patting his legs where the hot tea that Maddie had 'accidentally' poured on his lap had landed.

"Oops," she said, scowling a little.

Vlad clenched his jaw, and focused his attention back on Jack, who was explaining some ecto weapon that, although looking like it might fall apart any moment, was surprisingly functional and hence dangerous. While forcing his daydreams to the back of his head, he kept a weary eye on the love of his life, who had put the tea pot down on the coffee table and had sat down across from them. She really would look lovely in a white dress...

The door on the other end of the room opened, and a raven haired half ghost teenager stomped into the room, stopping short when he caught sight of Vlad. His slightly bored expression changed into that of a scowl almost as fierce as his mother's.

"What are you doing here," he asked, not even bothering with niceties.

His mother frowned at that, but obviously either she didn't think the boy needed to be raised to be polite to anyone, or it was just him she allowed him to be rude to. Vlad made a mental note to add this to his 'list of things Daniel needs to learn'.

"I was _invited_ by your father," he said politely, to show the boy how it was done, "And how do you do, Daniel?"

Danny's scowl deepened and he muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'fruitloop', before simply turning around and stomping up the stairs to his room. Vlad frowned in annoyance, thinking about his daydream. He made another mental note.

Invent a drug that makes half-ghosts obedient.


	61. 16: Questioning

16. Questioning

"It is now...," detective James Fitzgerald glanced at his watch, even though there was a clock high on the wall, "Nine fifteen PM, we are recommencing the questioning of Daniel Fenton, aged twenty, regarding the disappearance of Mr Vladimir Masters. Mr Fenton has waived his right to an attorney."

He looked at the young man slumped in the chair across from him. He looked tired and worn, one arm hanging over the back of the chair, his head tilted to the right, eyes half lidded. Still, they had an amused sparkle in them, something that told the detective that Daniel Fenton was far from cracking. He sighed. He was in for a long night. Again. But in contrast to the person sitting across from him, at least James had gotten some sleep after his partner had taken over. His partner who was now watching them behind the one-way mirror in the other room.

"Mr Fenton," James started.

"Danny," his suspect said.

James stopped, trying not to show his annoyance. The man kept on insisting to be called Danny, and said so every other sentence, as if by holding on to this little pet peeve, he somehow could control his situation. James wasn't about to give in, would not allow him even this tiny victory.

"Mr Daniel Fenton," he said, emphasizing the man's first name. Daniel rolled his eyes. "Can you please tell us again where you were the night of April the seventeenth?"

Fenton let his arm fall down from the back of the chair and straightened a little, then leaned his elbows on the table and let his head hang down.

"I. Don't. Remember."

"Come on, Fenton," James said, "It was the night of the massive ghost attack on the mall. Everybody knows where they were that night. Don't give me that."

"I'm not everybody. I. Don't. Remember."

James smiled, reached inside the briefcase he had brought with him and took out the enlarged and enhanced pictures he had just gotten back from the lab, his trump card. He spread them out on the table in front of Fenton, who kept his head hanging down and didn't try to look at them.

"Then let me refresh your memory," James said, allowing himself to sound slightly smug, "These are security camera images, taken just outside Mr Master's home that night. Have a look."

Fenton looked up and stared down at the stills from the video footage. James watched him closely. Fenton seemed to flinch momentarily, but that was the only reaction he gave. Then he leaned closer and picked up one of the pictures, the one that showed him looking up in the direction of the camera. His face was clearly recognizable, especially after the enhancement it had undergone.

"Where was that camera?" Fenton said, sounding like he was talking to himself instead of James.

James smirked a little and decided to answer anyway. "This is the neighbor's camera. Almost a quarter mile away. Didn't think of that, did you?"

Fenton shook his head and shrugged while putting down the picture.

"So I was there," he said calmly, "That doesn't prove anything."

James slammed down his fist, in a sudden burst of anger. "Opportunity," he said, counting on his fingers, "Motive. Means."

"What means?" Fenton asked, obviously not wanting to expand on the motive part – he had inherited most of the DALV corporation and could, if he was cleared from the charges and Vlad Masters was declared dead, call himself a billionaire.

James threw his hands in the air. Fenton leaned back again, a tired smile on his face. "You don't have a body," he pointed out, "And I'm willing to bet you don't have footage of me entering the premises. In fact..." He leaned forward again and began spreading out the pictures. "See? I was there for a little while, and I left. I walked by. That's all."

"Why did you deny being there in the first place?" James asked, trying to capture Fenton's logic and turn it against him, "If you're so innocent, why lie about it?"

Fenton rolled his eyes. "What part of 'I forgot I was there' don't you understand?" he asked snidely, "It's been three months. How am I supposed to remember where I was that particular day?"

"It was the day Vlad Masters disappeared."

Fenton crossed his arms and scowled. "I don't follow every step that fruitloop makes," he said.

"It was in every newspaper."

"Three days later."

"Oh, so you do remember?"

"No!"

James watched with interest as the frustration of his victim... his _suspect... _rose. The guy was a though nut to crack, but not nearly as tough as some other's he had managed to break. He was getting there, he could feel it.

"Tell me," he continued, smoothly moving to the next subject while Fenton was still smoldering about their earlier conversation, "How would you describe your relationship with Mr Masters?"

He glanced at the mirror for a moment, and therefore almost missed the sudden green glow in Fenton's eyes. Quickly, he looked back but it was gone. He frowned. He must have imagined it.

"He was a fruitloop," Fenton said.

"Was?"

Fenton bumped his head on the table. "Was. Is. How am I supposed to know? He's been missing for three months, I assume he's dead."

"Yes, Mr Fenton, that's what we're here to find out, what you know."

Fenton looked up again. "Nothing."

James smiled, and unobtrusively signaled his wish to be relieved to his partner.

"So you were not on very good terms then?" he asked.

Fenton sighed. "No," he said, "I hated his guts."

"I find it slightly curious hearing you admit that," James said, "Since you've denied being at odds with him before."

Fenton shrugged, looking away from him. "I assume you're going to ask others, and they will tell you that. There's no point in denying it." He frowned. "And I didn't lie about it. I didn't say anything about it if I remember correctly."

James grinned, leaned and retrieved a pile of printouts from his briefcase. He flipped through them until he found what he was looking for.

"He was alright," he read out loud, "We had no conflict. I have no wish for him to be dead, if that's what you're asking."

Fenton blinked. "You said that," James continued, "Yesterday morning. See? You're starting to contradict yourself." He leaned forward. "Come on, Fenton. You can end this. I'm sure you're tired, you want to sleep. Just tell us where you hid the body."

Fenton opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it again. He slumped down in his chair again and stared at the table, his eyes blank. Slowly, James also leaned back in his chair. It was time.

A knock on the door had Fenton almost jumping out of his skin. He jerked in his seat, and for a moment James thought he'd jump up in a fighting stance, fists clenched, ready to strike. Then he slumped down again. Harry entered the room.

"Chief wants you," he said to James.

James nodded, got up and left the room, careful to firmly close it behind him. Not that he thought Fenton was dangerous, but for a moment there had been... something... in his eyes that he didn't trust. The guy was hiding something.

Once outside, he quickly took two steps, entered the room adjacent to the interrogation room and took position behind the one-way mirror. Fenton was still slumped in his chair, looking warily at the newcomer. Harry smiled pleasantly, looking completely fresh and rested, something James knew he accomplished with a steady stream of caffeine the whole day. He turned the chair around, sat down on it with his legs on either side of it and leaned on the back of the chair.

"Well now," he said. Fenton blinked tiredly. "Where were you again the night of the seventeenth?"


	62. 49: Family

46. Family

I closed the door to my apartment quietly and leaned against it, trying to make sense of my swirling thoughts. I considered just sliding down to the floor for a moment and simply sleep there, but then I remembered a previous time I had done that and the aches and kinks in my muscles when I had woken up, stiff and uncomfortable and as tired as I had been before I had fallen asleep, and I forced myself to move.

One step. Another. The apartment was swaying, and I stumbled to the worn out couch in the middle of my tiny living room, almost tripping over the pile of papers and magazines I had haphazardly stacked beside the couch. I have never been the most tidy of persons, but living on my own for the past two years, with nobody to tell me to clean up after myself – except for Sam, who wasn't exactly the tidiest person in the world either – had the place in a constant state of disarray. Seriously. It looked like a hurricane had gone through my apartment.

Which it had, now that I thought about it. The last ghost fight right before I had gotten arrested had been right here. With Vortex.

Somehow, while contemplating the state of disorder in my place, I had managed to land myself on the couch, face down. I groaned a little, then turned and laid on my back, staring at the ceiling. At least that was relatively clean. Except for a rusty brown spot in the corner. Blood. Mine.

I stared at the spot for a while. It was oddly shaped, and I had been trying to make out what it was for the past few months. My list was still growing. Dolphin. Wing of a bird. Garland. Some weird curly tail of an animal. A flame. An oil stain.

I closed my eyes and the stain started shifting, swirling, changing shape. Some clawed animal. A dead squirrel, splattered all over the road. Two horrified eyes in a strangely distorted face.

I opened my eyes again, annoyed. There was really no place to be absolutely free of these images that kept invading my dreams, but I strongly objected to them while being awake. And I was still awake, surprising enough. I hadn't slept in over two days, you'd say I'd be out as soon as I laid down, but no, my mind had decided that this was the time to reiterate my life, or lack thereof, my dreams – commonly called nightmares – and the mess I had found myself in. I felt wide awake. Tired beyond exhaustion, but still wide awake.

Grumbling a little, I pushed myself up and looked around. Yup, most definitely Vortex's work. But something else too. All drawers had been opened, their contents spread out on the table. All cupboards in the kitchen were cleared out, clean plates and cups stacked neatly next to the haphazard pile of dirty dishes on the counter. Bed in my bedroom – from what I could see of it – overturned and put against the wall, mattress cut open, wardrobe wide open. Clothes everywhere, but that wasn't unusual.

I sighed. The police clearly had searched my apartment, looking for...what, evidence? Vlad?

Smiling a little, I pushed myself further up, forcing my protesting limbs to carry me to the kitchen. I considered the amount of work to get it all cleaned up and then dismissed it as unimportant. Instead, I shuffled to the back of the kitchen, stuck my hand in the wall and retrieved the old thermos I had hidden there.

The perks of being a half ghost.

I held it for a moment, weighing it, still slightly amazed on how light it was, and then took it back to the living room. I pushed some of the papers and general clutter stacked on the table aside, causing it to clatter to the floor, and placed the thermos in the middle of the table. Then I sat down on the couch again and leaned my elbows on my knees.

The refrigerator hummed in the kitchen. Cars drove by. Somebody was shouting, probably the man of the couple that lived three apartments down the hallway. I stared at the thermos.

"You know," I said, "If I had known you would cause me all this trouble, I would have found some other solution."

I tilted my head and watched the thermos for a while, not really expecting an answer, but completely prepared to make conversation for the two of us.

"They questioned me for days, did you know that? But they can't pin this on me. They have no proof. There is no way for them to know what I can do, nobody has ever heard of a half ghost. To them, I'm just Daniel Fenton, suspicious, but otherwise very, very lucky."

I sighed and looked away for a moment. Then I looked back at the thermos expectantly. "It'll take a while, of course," I continued, "All the formalities. The paperwork. I suppose some judge will have to declare you dead. And then it's all mine."

The thermos continued to be quiet. I knew he could hear me though, as I personally had spent a little too much time in the device. It's a weird sensation, being compressed into some sort of gaseous state, unable to take form, the constant feeling of falling apart. Messes with your head. I tapped the thermos and smiled.

"Maybe I should draw your face on it," I said, "It feels slightly weird, talking to a thermos."

I considered that thought. Yes, it was weird. But completely appropriate. I supposed anybody seeing me now would have a serious argument for locking me up though. I grinned, looked around and miraculously almost immediately spotted the black marker I was looking for. I reached, retrieved it from under the magazine and proceeded to draw a sketchy, but in my opinion completely accurate portrait of Vlad on the thermos.

"There," I said when I was done, "That's better." I put it down on the table again and capped the marker. "Now where were we?"

I thought for a moment. "Ah, yes. Your death. How long will that take, do you think? I mean, when there's no body? I don't really mind, you know, I'm prepared to wait. After all, I've been waiting for a long time for this."

I tilted my head and pretended to listen to the thermos.

"What?" I said, "They really do need a body for this thing, or it could take years?"

Sighing, I leaned back. "I could provide them with a body of course," I mused.

Vlad on the thermos shook his head, a little vehemently. Of course he would disagree, after all, I was talking about his body. But in order for it to show up, I would have to kill him, and I wasn't sure if I could pull that off. At the moment, they had nothing. No body, no crime.

No body, no inheritance.

"Why on earth did you leave me everything?" I asked him.

Vlad shrugged. "There was no one else," he said, "I still had hopes."

I nodded, seeing his point. "I hate your guts," I informed him.

It was Vlad's turn to sigh. "But you'll take my money," he said.

"Of course." I leaned forward again, feeling restless. "Compensation," I said, "For all the pain you've caused me."

"Education, my son," Vlad corrected me, "I was educating you. And you have to admit, you wouldn't be where you are today if it wasn't for me."

I looked pointedly around my shabby apartment and Vlad rolled his eyes. "I meant your powers. I forced you to learn. To live up to your potential. You're the strongest ghost alive... if you'll forgive me the pun. Nobody rivals you."

"Not even you," I said.

Vlad shook his head, looking sad. I smiled at him, suddenly feeling forgiving.

"Don't worry, Vlad," I said, "I won't kill you. How could I? I'll just have to wait for the whole thing to sort itself out. Like I said, I can wait."

The light coming through the dirty windows started to diminish, signaling the end of yet another day. I had to think for a bit to come up with the fact that it was a Friday. Probably. I rubbed my eyes, and spent some moments thinking up particularly cruel ways to torment the detectives that had questioned me for three days straight. I didn't crack though, and there was no way they could prove I had anything to do with Vlad's disappearance. In the end, they had to let me go.

Sam had been unamused.

I flinched as I thought about her reaction to my vehement denial of having seen Vlad the night he had disappeared. It wasn't that she had outright said that she didn't believe me. It was the look in her eyes when she looked at me, the same look she had given me when Dash had his little 'accident' two years ago, or when the annoying Box Ghost suddenly had stopped showing up. But for the most part, I managed to get things past her. My acting skills had improved dramatically the past six years.

I must have dozed for a while, although I don't remember my eyes closing, but when I looked at the thermos again, it had gone almost completely dark. I shifted a little and rubbed my neck.

"Hey, Vlad," I said.

In the darkness, I could hardly discern the face I had drawn on the thermos. Still, he looked up at me.

"Hmmm?" he asked.

I pushed myself up and leaned forward again. Vlad's eyes seemed to glow in the darkness, a menacing red glow, both intimidating and oddly comforting. Vlad was still Vlad. Everybody else around me changed, became more distant as I became... what? What was I becoming?

I pondered that for a while. My parents... well. They visited. They commented on my lack of stability, wandering from one job to the next, never staying long enough to get fired because I always ran off. Tucker... was somewhere off to UCLA, studying... computers. Sam was still around, attending Amity Park Community College, ignoring her parents' demands she attend a more prestigious university. She was here because of me, I knew that. She still felt a deep responsibility for my half ghost status, as she was the one who had urged me to go inside the portal that fateful day.

"I'm gonna inherit your money, you know," I said.

"Yes," he answered, "You are. Once they've declared me dead and you managed to convince them you don't have anything to do with my disappearance."

"You already said that," I scowled.

"That's because your mind is currently going around in circles," Vlad said snidely.

I reached, grabbed the thermos and let myself fall back on the couch. I placed it on my lap.

"Talk all you want," I said to him, "But I'm out here and you're in that thermos."

"Which only goes to show how completely insane you are," Vlad said, "Given the fact that you're talking to an inanimate object."

I shook the thermos, but had to concede to his point. I _was_ talking to an inanimate object. I looked up and glanced at the kitchen for a moment, wondering if the vultures had left anything for me to eat in the refrigerator. I was hungry, but too tired to get up and check. I shook my head and sighed.

"You know," I said, ignoring the fact that it wasn't really Vlad that I was talking to, "You told me once that we were the same, that we should stick together, that together we would rule the world."

Vlad raised his eyebrows, but didn't say anything, obviously curious as to where I was going. I frowned, trying to order my thoughts and sublimate them into coherent sentences.

"I don't want to rule the world," I informed him, "All I ever wanted was to fit in, to be normal, to be popular. But this whole ghost power business screwed that all up."

Still, Vlad didn't say anything, and it made me nervous. The silence in my apartment was oppressive.

"Don't get me wrong," I continued, "I _like_ being what I am. It's the 'what I am' part that has me confused. What am I? What are we? We're unique, two of a kind... well, technically there's three of us but Danielle... she... I'm not sure what happened to her. Haven't seen her in a while. You didn't have anything to do with that, did you?"

I looked intently at Vlad, but he kept his face expressionless. I shrugged, brushing it off because Danielle, nice though she was, also crept me out a little. She was my clone. She was a female version of me. Whenever I saw her, I kept comparing myself to her, trying to see what she did differently than me, and how very much alike we were. Still, I somewhat appreciated Vlad's efforts of trying to expand our species.

"You and I," I said, "You were right, you know. I see that now. You don't have to worry about me trying to kill you, you know. I would never do that. Because you see..."

I grinned. My eyes lit up, reflecting in the thermos and giving the room a ghostly green hue.

"You're the only family I've got."


	63. 38: Abandoned

38. Abandoned

The thin beam of light struggling its way through the crack in the wall lit up only a small part of the basement, showing mostly dust and debris as well as a few damaged and partially ripped off shelfs on the wall, but to him it seemed like a beacon, pulsating and bright and incredibly painful. Shielding his eyes, he tried to look at it, tried to take it in, to _feel_ it, this strange and unexpected glimpse of the outside world. He wanted to drink it in, wanted to grab it and hold it – he tried, pushing his thin arms between the bars, trying to reach out for it but it was way beyond his reach – and most of all wanted to keep it.

The unexpected cave in of part of the house had shaken him, had woken him up from his slumber, and a few terrified moments he had thought that this would be the end, finally, that this would either set him free or kill him, although the latter was impossible.

You can't kill a ghost.

You can lock it up in and ecto-enhanced cage though, and keep it locked up for the rest of eternity if you like. And they had liked.

Green eyes stared at the beam of light, watching the dust of the cave in slowly settle, watching the way the beam traveled on the floor, signifying the passing of time. At some point, the ray hit the cage and the ghost immediately moved towards it, first hesitantly holding his white gloved hand in before plunging in, bathing in the scant light, watching how it reflected on his white boots, how it got absorbed by his black suit, how it lit up the logo on his chest. Everything looked pristine and new, like the day he had first put it on.

Of course, when he had put it on, the colors had been reversed, but that seemed like an eternity ago.

Tracing the logo with his fingers, looking down at it in wonder, he failed to notice the beam moved on. He simply kept hovering his body in the light until he hit the bars of his cage and then watched the beam move away from him until it became weaker and weaker and the basement was once again plunged into darkness again, the same darkness that had plagued him for so long.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes, then opened them as wide as he could to try and capture a single spark of light he knew wasn't there. It was night out, the light would return for him to look at another day, and another, and another, so he wasn't overly worried. A day was nothing, the blink of an eye. He knew that soon he'd get used to the light, he would no longer notice it, it would appear and disappear in an endless cycle and he'd watch.

Maybe someday there would be another cave in, he knew some day there would be, it was inevitable. Nothing lasts forever. Eventually, this place and the whole town would turn to dust. Another decade, and the crack might widen. Maybe part of the ceiling would collapse at some point. Maybe hit his cage, set him free.

It was inevitable.


	64. 71: Obsession

71. Obsession

If boredom had a color, she thought, idly staring at the overweight teacher waving his hands and scribbling things on the blackboard, it'd be gray. Gray like the clouds up in the sky, like the tiled sidewalk across the street and the highrises in the distance. Even the park seemed gray somehow, with its leafless trees.

She looked down at her notebook, at the almost illegible notes she had taken. She frowned at them, looked up at the teacher and then randomly underlined one word. Then she moved her pen to the margin and jotted down a D.

She sighed, shifted in her seat and glanced sideways. Tucker was sitting next to her, seemingly in rapt attention, staring at the teacher. His hands were under the table, and from where she was sitting, she could clearly see the PDA he was holding. Judging by the way his fingers were moving he was playing some sort of game. Something was off though...

She snorted when she discovered Tucker's little deception. He had pictures of his eyes placed against the glass of his glasses, making it appear like he was watching the teacher, when in fact he was looking down at his PDA.

"Something funny, Miss Manson?" Mr Lancer asked.

She shook her head and looked down at her notes again, trying not to look at Tucker for fear of drawing attention to him. No doubt anybody taking a closer look at him would notice the slightly cross-eyed, unblinking and slightly grainy 'eyes' that were behind the glasses. Instead, she placed her pen next to the D and drew a curly a.

She tilted her head and resisted the urge to turn in her seat to look behind her, at the sleeping figure of her other best friend. His ability to sleep anywhere was legendary, and even Mr Lancer seemed to have given up trying to keep him awake. She remembered the last time when a teacher had tried to wake Danny had involved slapping a ruler on his table right next to his ears.

That had gotten his attention alright. He had jumped up into a fighting stance, and she could have sworn his eyes had glowed green, an enormous ectoblast already building up in his hands. Mr Faluca, slightly taken aback by his reaction, had quickly accepted his stuttered excuse and had let him out of the classroom. Later that day football practice was canceled due to a rather large crater in the middle of the football field.

An n appeared next to the a. And then, for good measure, another n.

She looked up at the clock hanging above the door. Fifteen minutes to go. Fifteen long, boring minutes. She stared at the hands for a while, but they seemed unmoving, so she let the clock be and turned her attention back to her notebook.

It just needed a y. She added it. Then she drew a circle around the word she just formed.

Wait. What was she doing? Was she writing her best friend's name, like some lovesick fangirl? Was she going to draw little hearts around his name, like she had seen Paulina do once for Phantom?

This time, she did turn in her seat, and looked at the black mop of hair sprawled out over his desk. She couldn't see his face, but she knew exactly what he would look like. Eyes closed, face stuck to the Formica of the table, mouth slightly open...

No. So not going there. Furiously, she looked at her notebook again and started to draw.

* * *

"What are you doing?" Danny hissed to Tucker, "She's gonna kill you!"

"Nothing," Tucker said, rummaging through Sam's backpack, "I just need her notes from English. She promised them to me earlier."

"I don't think she gave you permission to go through her stuff though," Danny said, looking nervously at the entrance to the cafeteria. Sure, he wasn't the one going through her things, but Sam would undoubtedly find a way to pin this on him, or at least name him an accomplice.

"Relax, dude," Tucker said, "You know how long girls take in the bathroom."

"Tucker, this is Sam. Not Paulina," Danny said.

"Same difference... oh my." Tucker stared down at something he had retrieved from the backpack.

"What?" When Tucker didn't react immediately, Danny reached over the table and punched his arm. "What?"

Tucker looked up and started grinning. "Man," he said, putting the notebook on the table for Danny to see, "She _really_ likes you."

Danny blinked. Sam's scant notes, jotted down in a handwriting only legible to herself and her two best friends. In the margin, several times the name 'Danny', with circles around them and heavily underlined. And around the name, dozens of small skulls, and even a few skeletons, all staring down angrily at the name. Danny looked up at Tucker.

"You're kidding, right?"


	65. 60: Rejection

60. Rejection

Ten neat stacks of paper, they had been. Exactly ten, and exactly the same, each page carefully numbered, checked, checked again and finally, with extreme care, put into ten thick envelopes. Then, meticulously, the ten addresses – not the same addresses, obviously, because that would have been pointless – and then the correct amount of postage, after carefully weighing the ten envelopes. Nothing was left to chance. Everything was as it should have been.

Then the trek to the real world, dangerous and difficult, not just because the annoying half ghost child tended to attack any ghost that so much as came near the portal, but also because traversing the ghost zone while trying to keep ten neat packages that – neat – was a near impossibility. Skulker had passed him, shooting at some ghostly rabbit, the Lunch Lady had thrown an unhealthy pile of meat at him in passing, and of course Youngblood had tried to stick chewing gum on them.

All attacks had been deflected though. He had made it, had even managed to avoid the hero of Amity Park for long enough to get to a mailbox and quickly dump his ten packages in there before being blasted by an overzealous Phantom and his two pesky friends, who fortunately were too thick to take note of the fact that a ghost has just dropped something in the mail.

It had been that fact, and that fact alone, that had kept him upright for the remainder of the day. Or at least, the remainder of the day after he had been released from that infuriating thermos.

And so he had waited. Nervously pacing his vast library, aimlessly typing in meaningless poems on his old typewriter, leafing through books of lesser writers than he, he had tried to pass the time. A week passed. Two. Three?

The daily check of the mail had become a routine matter, and even though the ghost boy obviously didn't like him peeking out of the portal, there wasn't much he could do about it except glare. He had already established in a very early stage of his plan that the mail was always brought down to the basement and put on the table to look at later. He had a perfect view on the table. The only thing he needed was a quick hand.

So when one day, before he had gone to check the mail, he was suddenly disturbed by the pesky ghost child with a haughty smirk on his face, he was quite taken aback. It wasn't yet time for the mail to arrive, he was sure of that, yet here the boy was, floating in the middle of his library, holding what looked like a stack of envelopes.

"These," the boy said, carelessly waving the envelopes, "Have been arriving at my house for a week now. The last one was two days ago. I waited for a bit to see if more were coming, you see, but since it has been quiet for two days, I guess this is it. There's ten of them."

He looked at the envelopes. Ten envelopes. All addressed to G. W. Riter. His name, no, his pseudonym. And of course the ghost boy's address, because how else was he going to get an answer... the boy had intercepted them. That was unexpected. He hadn't taken that into account, hadn't thought it possible that the oblivious boy would even glance at the mail, but obviously, he had. His big oaf of a father usually took the mail down and dumped it on the table for his wife to look at later. Lifting the mail addressed to him out had seemed like a menial task...

"I wasn't sure what to do with these," Phantom continued, still waving the ten envelopes, which, now that he looked closer, all had been ripped open. He felt his anger rise.

"So I opened them," Phantom said.

Now that he looked closer at the ghost boy, he got the distinct feeling that the brat looked smug. An uneasy feeling began to creep up. The fact that the boy was here, holding his letters the way he did, it did not bode well.

"You actually wrote a book?" Phantom asked, eyes glittering, "An actual book? You?"

He sat up straighter and squared his shoulders, suddenly feeling he had to defend himself, and not liking it one bit. "I am a writer," he said stiffly, "Hence the book. I should think that obvious."

Phantom started laughing. "Duh," he said, "You write. And write. You never finish. You can't, you're a ghost."

Thoroughly annoyed now, he floated closer to the boy, until he was almost within arm's reach of the letters. He looked at them hungrily for a moment, and with some difficulty tore his eyes away from them. He'd get them, one way or the other. Surely Phantom remembered just what kind of power he had?

Phantom seemed to have read his thoughts, because waved his hands in a defensive manner. "No no," he said, "I know what you can do, I'm not here to... I just came to... well..." Suddenly, he grinned evilly. "I came to deliver them. Sorry I opened them and all. But they're yours, so..."

Ghost Writer stared at the letters, now suddenly held out in front of him. He hesitated, looked up at Phantom's innocent face that reminded him way too much of Youngblood and then back at the letters again.

It was a trick. It had to be. Why would Phantom take the trouble of delivering his mail to him?

Slowly, he reached out and grabbed the letters. Phantom let go and floated backwards somewhat. They didn't explode. They didn't suddenly turn to dust in his hands. They were still there.

"Well," Phantom said, "Have fun with them."

And just like that, he was gone.

The letters. Ten letters from ten publishers. And Phantom had delivered them to him. If Ghost Writer had been human, he would have swallowed. This couldn't be good.

Brushing his fingers over the ragged edges where Phantom had sloppily opened the envelopes, he floated back into his realm, traversing his library with the hundreds, thousands of books – none of them by him though, sadly – and entered his study. The typewriter was waiting for him, and he frowned at the thing. If Phantom had done something to his letters...

Suddenly impatient, he shook the first letter out of the first envelope and began to read. 'We regret to inform you...'

Disappointment, but it was to be expected. Not all of them would accept his book, of course. He opened the next.

'After careful consideration... don't think it would fit in our list... wishing you the best of luck..."

He ground his teeth. Luck had nothing to do with it. Quality of writing, that was what it was all about. He opened the next, but put it aside after the first sentence. The fourth had a long explanation, but ended with the same message. He opened letter after letter, but finally had to admit his defeat.

Silently, he sat for a moment, considering his options. Then, he got up, sat behind his typewriter and entered a new sheet of white paper. He stared into the swirling green distance for a while, contemplating the story he was going to write. A drama, a tragedy. A tormented, lost main character. He smiled.

He was going to wipe the smirk right off of Phantom's face.


	66. 67: Playing the Melody

67. Playing the Melody

She was playing. Her fingers slid over the worn keys, feeling their smooth ivory surface and the hitch in the D where the hammer didn't hit the snares quite right, or maybe the spring was stretched beyond its normal wear. She didn't hesitate once, she never missed a key, and if she hadn't been playing the same song for almost half an hour straight she might even have enjoyed it.

The piano was reasonably well tuned, and the overly familiar tune echoed in the empty auditorium of the school, bouncing off the wall. When the hall was filled with people, the sound would have been muffled and have sounded more natural, as the acoustics of the room had been designed for that. But now, it sounded hollow. You could feel the emptiness of the room by just listening to the tune coming out of the piano. Not a living soul was there.

Yet she did have an audience.

About a hundred ghosts floated in the room, some vague and translucent, some obviously corporeal and dripping green ectoplasm. They were all quiet, listening to the music. Those who had discernible heads bobbed them slowly in the rhythm of the tune, others seemingly randomly moved up and down. They all had one common denominator though.

They were quiet. Peaceful. Transfixed. All conveniently together in one room, creating a cold, surreal atmosphere. It was like part of the ghost zone had moved here, into the auditorium, taking with it the dead feel of the place. The cold in the room wasn't real cold in the sense that the temperature was really low – although it wasn't exactly warm –, it was more the sense of finality, of lost hope, the feel of an open grave. A hundred fold.

It even smelled like an open grave. Besides the tell-tale ozone, she could smell the earth of a freshly dug grave, mixed with a slight smell of decay – although the latter might have been caused by the dead mouse she had found earlier. It didn't help her concentration at all, and even though she started to really, _really_ despise the song, she didn't want to make a mistake.

The creepy cold intensified, and she chanced a brief look into the room to see what the ghosts were up to, and immediately wished she hadn't. The ghosts were steadily moving closer, almost blocking her view on the high windows. The curtains, closed when the room was in use, were open, allowing sunlight to stream in, lighting up part of the green seats so brightly the other ones might just have well been black. She couldn't see the entrance to the auditorium, as she was blinded by the light and it too was in the shade.

Quickly, she looked back at the brown piano, at the empty music stand, the thin, hardly visible lines in the wood, the gold letters of the brand. She shouldn't look, she should just play, but the proximity of the ghosts brought a foul taste in her mouth. It was as if she could _taste_ death.

Vowing to brush her teeth as soon as this was over, Sam's scowl deepened when she started 'Fűr Elise', the only tune she knew by heart, for the fiftieth time. Danny had better hurry up with that thermos.


End file.
